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North of England flag

Region of England

image by Ian MacDonald, 14 July 2010
A Proposed Flag for the North of England

On this page:

Introduction: The Concept of the North of England
Description of the Proposed flag

See also:

Introduction: The Concept of a North of England

The North of England obviously refers to the northern geographical part of England considering it a single cultural region. Today this area would possibly consist of the ceremonial counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, County Durham, East Riding of Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear and West Yorkshire. You could also add the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire to the mix. More simply Northern England can be defined as the area covered by the three regions of North East England, North West England, Yorkshire and the Humber.
In the early 2000s several attempts were made to find a flag for the whole region, but none gathered much traction.
Pete Loeser, 17 October 2020

Description of the Proposed flag

This "Flag of the North of England" was designed and envisioned by Patrick Smith in 2003. It comprises the familiar Cross of St. George with a Scandinavian format reflecting the region's "northern-ness".
Charles Ashburner, 1 December 2003

Intriguingly, a local SCA-type group (those people who re-create battles in their spare time) asked me a few of years ago whether I could design a flag for them to represent the Danelaw (Danish-occupied England, pre-Norman invasion). The flag I made for them was identical to this design. So yes, I'd say this flag exists!
More seriously, though, for this flag to be real, in my humble opinion, it would have to actually be used and flown for the purpose for which it was intended. Unless the flag is actually used by someone, somewhere, to represent the North of England (preferably in some semi-official capacity), I'd say it is a flag proposal rather than a "real flag", whether cloth examples exist or not.
James Dignan, 2 December 2003

Although this proposed flag for the North of England existed and was sold commercially for a brief time, it really never caught on and has basically disappeared from the market. With the success of registering specific county flags with the UK Flag Institute the desire or need for having a regional flag for the North of England seems to have been satisfied.
Pete Loeser, 17 October 2020