page_title: Flag of Florida
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Flag of Florida / History
caption_attribution_description: Great Assembly of the States-General in 1651. The painting consists of a 52 × 66 cm wooden panel with attached to it a smaller 9 × 42 cm copper plate. When this plate is raised the view on the Great Assembly is obscured by a wall of paintings (see File:Bartholomeus van Bassen - The Great Hall of the Binnenhof in The Hague - WGA6277.jpg).
context_page_description: The flag of Florida, often referred to as the Florida flag, is the state flag of the U.S. state of Florida. It consists of a red saltire on a white background, with the state seal superimposed on the center. The flag was first adopted as the state flag of Florida in 1868. The flag's current design has been in use since May 21, 1985, after the Florida state seal was graphically altered and officially sanctioned for use by state officials. In 2001, a survey conducted by the North American Vexillological Association placed Florida's state flag 34th in design quality out of the 72 Canadian provincial, U.S. state and U.S. territorial flags ranked.
context_section_description: Spain was a dynastic union and federation of kingdoms when Juan Ponce de León claimed Florida on April 2, 1513. Several banners or standards were used during the first period of settlement and governance in Florida, such as the royal standard of the Crown of Castile in Pensacola and the Cross of Burgundy in St. Augustine. As with other Spanish territories, the Burgundian saltire was generally used in Florida to represent collective Spanish sovereignty between 1513 and 1821.
  In 1763, Spain passed control of Florida to Great Britain via the Treaty of Paris. Great Britain used the original union flag with the white diagonal stripes in Florida during this brief period. The British also divided the Florida territory into East Florida, with its capital at St. Augustine, and West Florida, with its capital at Pensacola. The border was the Apalachicola River.
  Spain regained control of Florida in 1783. In 1785, King Charles III chose a new naval and battle flag for Spain, which was now a more centralized nation-state, and its territories. This flag, a tri-band of red-gold-red, was used along with the Burgundian saltire in the provinces of East and West Florida until 1821, when the Florida provinces joined the United States.
caption: Burgundian saltires captured by the Dutch in their war of independence at the Assembly of the States General of the Netherlands in 1651.
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