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Cupertino, California (U.S)

Santa Clara County

image located by Valentin Poposki, 13 October 2011

Description of the flag
The seal

See also:

Santa Clara County
Municipal flags of California (index page)
California
United States of America

Description of the flag

The City of Cupertino, California, uses two versions of the same flag design. The flag shows the city logo on a monochrome background. The background could be white or dark blue. The logo shows a square with Cupertino's helmet and rays around it. Est. 1955 below the helmet and "CUPERTINO" below the square. When the flag background is white the letters "CUPERTINO" are dark blue, when the background is dark blue the letters are white.
Information and images, thanks to Rick Kitson, Public & Environmental Affairs Director.

About the city:
"Cupertino is a suburban city in Santa Clara County, California, U.S., directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 50,546 at the time of the 2000 census." - from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupertino,_California.
Official website: www.cupertino.org.

Valentin Poposki, 16 February 2010

Seal

image located by Paul Bassinson, 6 May 2019

Source: https://apps.cupertino.org

The website at www.cupertino.org shows the municipal logo, the casque or helmet of a Conquistador in silver and gray, superimposed upon a dark blue vertical rectangle or oblong. However, the image of this item shown on subsequent pages of the web site shows what appears to be a photograph of such a casque, with is richly engraved and etched.
Ron Lahav, 17 August 2004, 9 September 2004

The morion [helmet] is symbolic of the group of Spanish explorers that came through this area, led by Juan Bautista de Anza. I understand they were not wearing such conquistador helmets at the time, but rather soft caps! Cupertino got its name from one of the men in the exploring party, who was reminded of his home town of Copertino, Italy. A link to the web page that has more detail about the De Anza party can be found here. Cupertino was incorporated in 1955. I'm not sure when the morion (in some form or other) was incorporated into the city seal and/or logo. Problems with the reproduction of the letterhead (people thought the morion looked like a snail or a seashell) plus a desire to modernize led to the most recent revision, which is more streamlined and contemporary.
Kimberly Smith, through Ron Lahav, 11 September 2004