AZArizona State Symbols

Arizona's best known symbol is its flag, and the single copper star at its center is a mining statistic turned into graphic design. Arizona has led the country in copper production for more than a century, and when the flag was adopted in 1917 the metal was the backbone of the young state's economy. The thirteen red and gold rays above the star do double duty: they count the original colonies and they read as a desert sunset, in the same red and gold that Coronado's expedition carried through the region in 1540.

Official state symbols

The saguaro blossom got there first. The territorial legislature named it the floral emblem in 1901, eleven years before statehood, and the 1931 act simply confirmed it. Four of the state's wildlife symbols share a birthday: the ringtail, the Arizona ridge-nosed rattlesnake, the Arizona tree frog and the Apache trout were all designated in 1986, in a single sweep through the legislature.

What is on the Arizona state flag

The top half carries thirteen rays alternating red and gold, radiating from the center of the flag toward the upper edge. They stand for the thirteen original colonies and for the sunsets of the West, and the two colors are those of the Spanish flag carried by Coronado. The bottom half is liberty blue, the same shade used in the United States flag. Sitting where the two halves meet is a single five-pointed star in copper, larger than any other element, marking Arizona as the country's leading copper producer.

The design is credited to Charles W. Harris, adjutant general of the Arizona National Guard, who needed a flag for the state rifle team to carry at the national matches at Camp Perry, Ohio. Nan D. Hayden, wife of the congressman Carl Hayden, is generally said to have sewn the first one. The legislature passed the flag bill in February 1917 and it became law without a governor's signature.

The Arizona state seal

Arizona's seal is a landscape crowded with industry. Behind everything rises a range of mountains with the sun coming up over the peaks. On the right sits a storage reservoir and dam, below it irrigated fields and orchards, and beside them cattle grazing. On the left, in the middle distance, a quartz mill stands with a miner in front of it holding a pick and shovel. The motto Ditat Deus arches above the scene, and the border reads "Great Seal of the State of Arizona" with the date 1912.

The elements are a checklist of what Arizonans call the five C's: copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate. The dam and reservoir matter more than they look. Arizona's agriculture only became possible at scale after Roosevelt Dam was finished on the Salt River in 1911, the year the seal was designed.

Symbols that surprise people

• Arizona has official neckwear. The bola tie was adopted in 1971, and Arizona was the first state in the country to designate a piece of neckwear at all. The modern version is usually traced to a Wickenburg silversmith in the late 1940s.
• It has an official firearm. The Colt Single Action Army revolver became the state firearm in 2011, the first state gun in the United States and the model for several later imitators.
• The state fossil is a tree. Petrified wood, specifically Araucarioxylon arizonicum from the Petrified Forest, was named in 1988. It is roughly 225 million years old.
• The state dinosaur was found by a graduate student. Sonorasaurus thompsoni, a mid-sized brachiosaur from the Whetstone Mountains, is named for Richard Thompson, who spotted the bones in 1994. It became the state dinosaur in 2018.
• There are two state songs. "The Arizona March Song" dates to 1919. A second, "Arizona," better known as "I Love You, Arizona" and written by the country singer Rex Allen Jr., joined it in 1982 without replacing it.

Explore further