The flag

Flag

A flag is a piece of fabric with a distinctive design that is usually rectangular and used as a symbol, as a signaling device, or decoration. The term flag is also used to refer to the graphic design employed by a flag, or to its depiction in another medium.The first flags were used to assist...

 of San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, depicts a rising phoenix

Phoenix (mythology)

The phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....

, often assumed to be symbol of the city's recovery from the 1906 Earthquake and fire, but it dates several years earlier to about 1900. San Francisco suffered several devastating fires, including six fires between 1849 and 1852 (the last destroying almost the entire city), along with two earthquakes. Every time, the city, like the mythological bird, "rose from the ashes" and was rebuilt in even grander style and size.

Below the phoenix is a banner which reads in Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

: Oro en Paz—Fierro en Guerra, which translates into: "Gold in Peace, Iron in War". Because of this, the official city colors are gold and black; these two colors decorate the dome of San Francisco City Hall

San Francisco City Hall

San Francisco City Hall, re-opened in 1915, in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917. The structure's dome is the fifth largest in the world...

.

The yellow border, now reproduced as a part of the flag was originally intended to be a gold fringe

Fringe (trim)

Fringe is an ornamental textile trim applied to an edge of an item, such as drapery, a flag, epaulettes, or decorative tassel.Fringe originates in the ends of the warp, projecting beyond the woven fabric...

, but mistakenly became incorporated into the design. When used indoors, as is the custom, a gold fringe is added to what should have been fringe in the first place.