A new flag approved in 2002 by the Portland City Council is the city’s fifth official flag since 1917. Changes to the flag remove the City Seal from the canton and widen the blue stripes, thereby returning the design to the one submitted by Douglas Lynch in 1969, but changed by the City Council at that time. The design is intended to be more pleasing to the eye and cheaper to reproduce. The flag uses green, yellow, blue and white: green on the four background rectangles to represent forest land, yellow stripes to represent agriculture and commerce, and blue stripes to represent the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. Narrow white stripes outline the yellow and blue and the stripes intersect at a white star representing the City of Portland.
