Vexillology

If CGP Gray slagging off shite flags gets places to update them then good, maybe he can do transit infrastructure next

Not a Minnesotan but I agree, #4 is the best.

Non-minnesotan but I agree on #4 it also allows it to be reproduced on other mediums like buttons and patches easily.

Minnesota native here - definitely agree, that's a great design. Plenty of potential for it to become an iconic flag.

Seriously what are the stories on those? Surely they were submitted by children or something?

And an optic blast like the Laser Kiwi Flag.

The pattern is called Selburose and is a traditional pattern used in knitted mittens and sweaters from the area of Selbu located in Norway at the border to Sweden.

I thing #4 is by far the nicest flag

Number five gets my vote. The light blue with a nice star and the swirls , it's the perfect sign for a flag

I actually like the 8th one -- the one with three vertical stripes. The one above that, though, looks like a loon and baby loon are following the Star of Bethlehem, on their way to deliver a nice bowl of cream of wild rice soup to the baby Jesus.

Iceland has a red cross, not a green one, so it isn't Iceland-with-star.

Oh look at the royal snob over here with his "why don't they use purple" nonsense, like it doesn't cost a year worth of grain and my eldest daughter's hand in marriage.

Every state whose flag is just the state seal over a blue or white background should be forced to change their flag. The concept is offensively boring.

• The whole point of a Minnesota flag is to have an easy way to display you're Minnesotan. Literally half of the state flags look the exact same as ours if there isn't a wind blowing, and genuinely that number doesn't go down much even WITH a breeze.
• If we have something more iconic, noticeable at a glance, it's marketable. Think about Britain's flag on all their tourist merch. Think about the MOA star on everything to do with the mall, think "I <3 NYU" mugs, shirts, hats.

Visual aesthetics aside, in the Seal of Minnesota (the busy bit in the center, which has official uses besides the flag), the native on horseback is riding off into the sunset (westward, the 1983 edit notwithstanding) in the most gerenous interpretation or being driven off by the settler in a less charitable one (see rifle in the foreground). Regardless, the message is one of displacement of the native peoples by the mostly European-heritage settlers for the sake of "civilization". It's not something we should display proudly as an embodiment of our state's core values, and for that reason has been contentious for years.

Some reading if anyone is more interested in the history: #1 and #2

Because it's ugly

Beats me, its got five star-cocks surrounding the seal.