Flag of County Durham

The flag of County Durham is used to represent the historic county of Durham. It consists of a blue and gold bicolour with a counterchanged depiction of the cross of St Cuthbert on top, and was designed in 2013 through a competition and public vote. It is intended to be freely used by anyone who wishes to fly it.

The flag is a bicolour, the upper half gold and the lower blue. On this is a counterchanged depiction of the pectoral cross of St Cuthbert.

The colours blue and gold are associated with County Durham. They are used in the coat of arms and banner of arms of the diocese of Durham, which itself influenced the coat of arms and banner of arms of Durham County Council. The pectoral cross of St Cuthbert was either buried with him when he died in 687 or placed in his coffin in 698, when his sainthood was recognised. It was discovered in 1827 when his coffin was opened, and is now on display in Durham Cathedral.

The flag was designed by James Moffat and his daughters, Katie and Holly, from Chilton in the county. At the ceremony in which the flag was unfurled, James stated that “the design is simple. Holly’s favourite colour is yellow and Katie’s is blue which luckily coincides with our county’s historic colours. The St. Cuthbert’s cross was selected simply because, the first ever present my children bought me was a St. Cuthbert’s cross badge, on a trip with Chilton Primary School to Durham Cathedral in 2002.”

At the ceremony in which the flag was unfurled, the organiser of the competition to select it, Andy Strangeway, stated that it is "free, public symbol for all to use, especially on 20th March each year which is not only County Durham Day but also St Cuthbert’s birthday."

The flag has been flown at various locations within the historic county boundaries, including in Hetton-le-Hole, South Shields, and the wider metropolitan borough of South Tyneside. It was also flown from the building of the Department for Communities and Local Government on County Durham Day in 2014, and raised in Parliament Square in Westminster in 2022.

The road signs marking the historic boundary between County Durham and the North Riding of Yorkshire in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees use the flag.

The competition to design the flag was launched in July 2013 on the blog of Andy Strangeway, who had already established flags for the Ridings of Yorkshire. The competition noted that County Durham was the only historic county in the North of England without a flag, after the adoption of the flags of Cumberland and Westmorland in 2011 and 2012 respectively.