Austin's flag, adopted in 1961, features a blue field with the municipal seal at the center. The seal shows a white Texas star surrounded by a ring bearing "CITY OF AUSTIN" at the top and "1839" (the year of founding) at the bottom.
The design is classic and understated, but Austin's identity is anything but conventional. The unofficial slogan "Keep Austin Weird" captures the spirit: progressive in a conservative state, artistic in a country of business, ecological in the land of oil.
But its cultural influence exceeds its size. South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual music, film and tech festival, draws hundreds of thousands of visitors. Austin City Limits, the longest-running live-music show on American television, has recorded here since 1974.
Austin has transformed into "Silicon Hills" – a tech hub rivaling Silicon Valley. Apple, Google, Tesla, Oracle have massive campuses. Growth is explosive. Rents have skyrocketed. Gentrification threatens the "weird" character.
The simple blue flag with its Texas star shows nothing of this strangeness. Perhaps that is intentional: Austin hides its true nature behind Texan conformity.