Bismarck's flag, adopted in 1973, is remarkably legible: a deep blue field, a golden cross stretching toward the cardinal points, and a red tipi ringed in white at the center. The symbol sums up the meeting of cultures: the Dakota nations who inhabited these plains and the modern city born of the Northern Pacific Railway.
It is the political capital of North Dakota but also the gateway to the Bakken oil fields. Since 2010, the oil rush has caused the economy to explode: full hotels, doubled wages, traffic jams of pickup trucks on Interstate 94. The Capitol offices – a 21-story Art Deco skyscraper – overlook this transformation.
The red tipi on the flag is a reminder that this wealth is extracted from a land inhabited for millennia. The state was named in 1889, but the city's name, Bismarck, was a marketing move: the German financiers of New York chose it to flatter the German Empire and attract capital. A century and a half later, the golden cross stretches over a horizon as vast as ever.