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Aberdeen, South Dakota (U.S.)

Brown County

image by Masao Okazaki, 20 June 2020

Flag
Community flag
Seal

See also:

Flag

From the photo in the Dakota Free Press article I cleaned up the 4 inner parts of the seal and redrew the rest of the flag.
https://dakotafreepress.com/2020/06/13/dont-vex-aberdeen-with-illogical-flag-pick-councilwoman-elects-best-banner/

Also note that Flag 2 of the proposed flags shown in that article plagiarized the flag of Sutherland, Scotland, adopted in 2018. The designer hired and paid to design the 3 flags has now become a member of the city council. Aberdeen is lucky Flag 2 wasn't chosen.
Masao Okazaki, 20 June 2020

Being the designer of the Brown County flag in 1987, it says at https://www.aberdeennews.com that Jason Keeton had the winning entry in a flag design contest for Aberdeen in January 1989 out of 300 entries. Although it looks like it would be the municipal seal, it is actually a creation by Keeton, depicting wheat and a plow for agriculture, two hands shaking in moving together and economic progress, the dome of the courthouse as a city landmark, and a train which was instrumental in Aberdeen's settlement. He says this design was chosen because it was popular at the time.
Daniel Rentería, 22 September 2023

Community flag

image located by Dave Fowler, 19 June 2020

A new city flag has been adopted:
https://www.aberdeennews.com/city-flag
Dave Fowler, 19 June 2020

Here's another article: https://hubcityradio.com/new-city-flag-design-presented-to-aberdeen-city-council/
This one is from a week earlier and shows the other proposed flags and the old flag:
https://dakotafreepress.com/2020/06/13/dont-vex-aberdeen-with-illogical-flag-pick-councilwoman-elects-best-banner/
Masao Okazaki, 19 June 2020

Aberdeen has a newly designed flag with a color scheme and elements showing its connection to agriculture and the railroad. Development of a new flag was part of the bid Pinned Workshop submitted to create a new logo and slogan for the city. That bidding process was conducted by the Aberdeen Area Chamber of Commerce, Aberdeen Downtown Association, Aberdeen Area Convention and Visitors Bureau and Aberdeen Development Corp.

Tiffany Langer of Pinned was hired to develop the new slogan and logo at a cost of $13,000. She is a city councilwoman-elect. She starts July 1. Langer announced the city’s new slogan and logo in May and unveiled the new flag design at Monday’s City Council meeting.

The design process included two community votes — one in which people selected words that described Aberdeen and a second that gave voters three options to pick from. The winning design features blue from South Dakota’s flag and a
background pattern that echoes Scotland’s flag, which is blue with a white X that stretches from corner to corner. The green in the flag represents agriculture. A yellow starburst in the center also coincides with railroad points, Langer said. She said there’s been some talk of Aberdeen already having a flag and gestured to one hanging in the City Council chambers. But, she said, it’s yet to be determined if that flag was adopted as the city’s formal flag. That will take some more research. So far, Langer said the city been able to determine the previous flag was created through an Exchange Club contest in the 1980s. Chamber Director Gail Ochs said it’s possible the first flag features a city seal, and that seal would not be replaced with the adoption of a new city flag.
Dave Fowler 19 June 2020

The new Aberdeen flag has been designated as a "community flag," and the previous seal flag remains as the official city flag.
Dave Fowler, 17 August 2020

Seal

image located by Paul Bassinson, 30 November 2019

Source: https://cdn.irelo.com/.../south-dakota-aberdeen-seal.png
Paul Bassinson, 30 November 2019