US City
Seattle’s seal and flag carry the same face: the profile of Chief Sealth, the man the city is named after. Each also carries something that is not quite what it looks like. The seal says 1869, the year Seattle incorporated for the second time. The flag says “City of Goodwill”, which is the name of a sporting event held in the city in 1990.
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| City | Seattle, Washington |
|---|---|
| Seal | 1937, by the sculptor James A. Wehn — Chief Sealth in profile, 1869 below |
| Flag | 16 July 1990 — teal and white, the portrait ringed by “City of Goodwill” and “Seattle” |
| Colours | Teal for Puget Sound at dusk, white for the mountains |
| NAVA 2004 survey | 30th of 150 United States city flags |
Flag of Seattle — teal and white, the city’s portrait of Chief Sealth within two concentric rings, lettered City of Goodwill above and Seattle below, with white lines running from the centre to the hoist for the waves of Puget Sound. Adopted 16 July 1990.
The flag is teal and white. At its centre is the portrait of Chief Sealth within two concentric rings, with “City of Goodwill” curving above and “Seattle” below, and white lines running from the centre to the hoist for the waves of Puget Sound. The teal is given as the colour of the Sound at dusk, the white as the mountains. It was adopted by Council Resolution 28207 on 16 July 1990.
The motto reads like a civic virtue. It is in fact the name of the Goodwill Games, an international sporting competition held in Seattle in 1990. The flag was made for the event, the event ended, and the flag stayed — so every Seattle flagpole still carries the slogan of a fortnight of athletics.
The sources disagree on who drew it: the city archives credit Councilmember Paul Kraabel, other accounts the architect David Wright, with Kraabel as the councilmember who put it forward.
There is one more thing to record, and it is the part that is still open.
The face on both emblems belongs to Chief Sealth, a leader of the Duwamish and Suquamish, and the man the city took its name from. He is not an allegory, a founder-figure or a generic profile. He was a real person, and his descendants have a view about the use being made of him.
On 6 August 2021, the Sauk-Suiattle tribe publicly called on the city to either live up to the values of its namesake or cease bearing his image — specifically over salmon restoration and the removal of dams. The tribe reported that it received no response from city leadership.
This atlas describes emblems; it does not adjudicate. But two facts belong on the same page, and a reader is entitled to put them beside each other:
Nothing in the published record says the fish on the seal were intended to refer to what the 2021 statement was about, and this page does not claim they were. The two things are simply both true, and they are the reason the city’s own arts office was funding a flag without the portrait the following year.
It is a rare situation in heraldry and worth naming for what it is. A coat of arms can be disputed between claimants; a seal can fall out of legal use; a flag can be voted down for being ugly. It is unusual for the subject of a portrait to still have a community able to speak for him, and to ask for it back.
Seal of Seattle — a profile portrait of Chief Sealth within concentric circles, the numerals 1869 beneath, the outer ring lettered Corporate Seal Of The and the inner City of Seattle. Below the portrait, two evergreen cones and two fish that the reference works describe only as what appear to be salmon.
The seal is a portrait: an artist’s profile of Chief Sealth, set within concentric circles, with the numerals 1869 beneath him. The outer ring reads “Corporate Seal Of The”, the inner one “City of Seattle”. It was designed by the sculptor James A. Wehn, cast by Richard Fuller and adopted by the City Council in 1937.
Civic seals put ships, ploughs, towers and allegorical women on themselves. Very few put a named, historical person in profile and nothing else.
The date is not a founding date. Seattle was first incorporated in 1865, dissolved itself in 1867 at the request of its own leading citizens, and was incorporated again on 2 December 1869. The seal carries the second date — the year the city decided, on its second attempt, to exist.
Beneath the profile are two cones from an evergreen tree and two fish. The reference works describe the fish only as what appear to be salmon; no published description identifies them, and this page does not either.
The design has not stayed still: it was redrawn in 1974, in the 1980s and in the 1990s, each time closer to the city logo — which is why the face on the flag is the same drawing.
A profile portrait of Chief Sealth within concentric circles, with the numerals 1869 beneath it, the rings lettered “Corporate Seal Of The” and “City of Seattle”. Below the portrait are two evergreen cones and two fish, which the reference works describe only as what appear to be salmon.
It is the year of Seattle’s second incorporation. The town was first incorporated in 1865, dissolved in 1867 and incorporated again on 2 December 1869.
It refers to the Goodwill Games, an international sporting competition held in Seattle in 1990. The flag was made for that event and then became the city’s official flag.
Teal for Puget Sound at dusk and white for the surrounding mountains. The white lines running to the hoist are the waves of the Sound.
A note on method. Both emblems are described from the published descriptions, not from the drawing. The fish beneath the portrait are not identified in any description found, and are not identified here; the designer of the flag is credited differently by the city archives and by other accounts, and both are given.
Last reviewed by the Emblema Mundi editorial team on 30 September 2026.