Florida's Flag History

Many flags have flown over Florida since European explorers first landed here in the early sixteenth century. Among these have been the flags of five nations: Spain, France, Great Britain, the United States, and the Confederate States of America. Numerous other unofficial flags also have been flown on the peninsula at one time or another. Only a written description remains of some of these banners.

A joint resolution of the legislature in 1899, approved by state voters in 1900, made out current State Flag the official banner of Florida.

Between 1868 and 1900, Florida's state flag consisted of a white field with the state seal in the center. During the late 1890s, Governor Francis P. Fleming suggested that a red cross be added, so that the banner did not appear to be a white flag of truce or surrender when hanging still on a flagpole. Reminiscent of Alabama's State Flag and the red "X" of the Confederate States of America, the Florida State Flag displays two diagonal red bars on a white field.

The State Seal on the flag features a Native American Seminole woman scattering flowers, a steamboat, a cabbage palmetto tree and a brilliant sun. Florida is thus represented as the land of sunshine, flowers, palm trees, rivers and lakes... "la Florida"

The official specifications for the flag can be found in Chapter 15.012 of the Florida Statutes. "The State Flag shall conform with standard commercial sizes and be of the following portions and descriptions: The seal of the state, in diameter one-half the hoist, shall occupy the center of a white ground. Red bars, in width one-fifth the hoist, shall extend from each corner towards the center, to the outer rim of the seal". The Department of State is the custodian of the State Flag.