Each of New York City's boroughs has its own flag. These flags are rarely seen, but fairly well known.
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The Borough of Manhattan does not have an official Borough flag. By order of the Borough President, a variant of the City flag, with the seal of the Borough President in place of the City Seal is used to represent Manhattan.
The flag of the Bronx is a horizontal tricolor of orange(top), white and blue with the Bronck family arms in the center encircled by a laurel wreath denoting honor and fame. The shield shows the face of the sun with rays displayed rising from the sea, signifying peace, liberty, and commerce. The crest is an eagle with its wings expanded on a hemisphere facing eastward, representing "the hope of the New World while not forgetting the Old." The motto is "Ne cede malis," meaning "Yield not to evil."[1]
The flag of Brooklyn is a white field with a seal at the center. Within the seal appears a figure of the goddess of justice in gold holding Roman fasces in her left hand set on a background of light blue. Encircling her figure on a background of dark blue appear the words "Eendraght Mackt Maght" the old Dutch motto for "In unity there is strength" and below the words "borough of Brooklyn." The outside and inside trim of the seal is gold.[2]
The flag has three horizontal bands of blue(top), white and blue which represents the arms of the first Dutch governor William Kielt, a tulip crossed with a rose within a red and white circle and queen's crown at the left side of the top band. The circle denotes the Native American name for Long Island Seawanhaka which meant wampum. The tulip represents the Dutch settlers. The red and white rose is symbolic of the English houses of York and Lancaster. The Queens's crown signifies the name of the county and borough in honor of Queen Catherine of Braganza. The date indicates the year when Queens became a part of the city of New York.[3]
The flag is on a white background with the design of a seal in the shape of an oval in the center. Within the seal appears the color blue to symbolize the skyline of the borough in which two seagulls appear colored in white. The green outline represents the countryside with a white outline denoting the residential areas of Staten Island. Below is inscribed the words Staten Island in gold. Under the name are five wavy lines of blue to symbolize the water.[4]