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Livonia, Michigan (U.S.)

Wayne County

image by Ivan Sache, 3 June 2006

Description of the flag

See also:

Description of the flag

The City of Livonia and Wayne County flags appear in the fourth photo on this page. The Livonia flag is white with city seal in the middle.
Valentin Poposki, 25 March 2006

The City of Livonia (c. 36 sq. miles; 100,545 inhabitants in 2000) is the second largest city in Wayne County and the eighth largest city in Michigan. The region of Livonia was originally inhabited by Potowatami Indians. In the XIXth century, pioneers from New England and New York settled the area. Livonia is the name of a town in New York State and of a former duchy on the Baltic Sea. The boundaries of the Township of Livonia were set on 17 March 1835 by an Act of territorial legislature. The city remained rural until the late 1940s, when General Motors and Ford opened there a transmission plant and parts depot, respectively. The Michigan Racing Association built a race track in Livonia in 1949 and the Township decided to incorporate in order to benefit from the racetrack revenues; after a popular vote, the entire Township was incorporated into the City of Livonia on 23 May 1950. The population grew from 17,000 in 1950 to more than 100,000 in 1988. The city has preserved its heritage through the Greenmead Historical Village, a 103-acre farm-museum of Livonia's history.

On 17 May 2006, Mayor Jack Engebretseon announced the unveiling of the new city flag at the dedication of the Livonia Veterans Memorial Plaza on 27 May, saying: "At the Dedication of our beautiful Veterans Memorial Plaza, we will ceremoniously raise the United States flag, the State of Michigan flag, the Wayne County flag, the POW-MIA flag, and the City of Livonia flag,” the Mayor said. The flag was designed by long-time Livonia resident Van Nazarian at the Mayor's request. It is blue with the city's seal in the middle. The seal shows a wheat sheaf, representing the rural past of the city, alongside a modern landscape representing the Livonia of today. The shield on top of the seal bears the motto "In God We Trust", surmounting three stars.

After the Livonia official website.

In his article "Livonia plans to wave its first city flag this weekend", published in "Detroit Free Press" on 23 May 2006, Zlati Meyer gives additional details on the flag. The Mayor said that the blue in the new flag alludes to the similar shade that's on the Michigan state flag. However, the designer of the flag "notes that Livonia's emblems have often been done in those colors; for example, the wooden city seal, carved out of golden lumber, that presides over the City Hall auditorium and the burnished-yellow versions affixed to some city vehicles."
The ratio of the flag is 3:5.

Ivan Sache, 3 June 2006

Note that an artist's depiction of a future Memorial Plaza is online at ci.livonia.mi.us. It shows a white flag. But that depiction was made before the city announced what its flag would look like- so the seal on white city flag was just a placeholder that the artist devised for the sake of his illustration in the then-absence of a real city flag.
Ned Smith, 4 June 2005