Flag of Indiana
Indiana’s flag is a gold torch on blue inside a circle of 19 gold stars, with INDIANA arched over the largest star. Under the state law, the 13 outer stars are the original states, the five inner stars the states admitted before Indiana, and the large star above the flame Indiana itself; the Indiana Historical Bureau says the torch stands for liberty.
How to read it
Indiana Code 1-2-2-1 (Acts 1917, chapter 114; Acts 1955, chapter 146; amended 1979) adopts the flag: a blue field with 19 stars and a flaming torch in gold or buff. Thirteen stars form an outer circle, with one star at the top centre. Five more stars sit in a half circle below the torch, inside the outer circle. The 19th star, appreciably larger than the others, is placed above the flame, and the word “Indiana” in a half circle above it, midway between it and the top star. Rays run from the torch to the three stars on each side of that top star. The law allows two sizes and anything proportionate to them: 3 feet by 2 feet, or 5 feet by 3 feet, fly by hoist. The design is Paul Hadley’s, the winner of a contest held by the Indiana Daughters of the American Revolution for the state’s centennial in 1916, which offered a $100 prize and drew more than 200 entries. The General Assembly adopted it in 1917 as the state banner and added the word “Indiana” above the star; in 1955 it was made the state flag.
Also searched as: flag of indiana, indiana flag, indiana flag meaning, indiana state flag.
Why it began as a banner
In 1901 the General Assembly had made the United States flag Indiana’s official state flag, the Indiana Historical Bureau says. So as not to conflict with that law, Hadley’s design was adopted in 1917 as the state banner, and it took the 1955 act to make it the state flag. Governor James P. Goodrich thought so little of the idea that he let the 1917 bill become law without his signature, and in 1920 the Indianapolis News reckoned that “probably not one person in a thousand” knew what the flag was.
Who designed it
Paul Hadley, a painter known for his watercolours, born in Indianapolis on 5 August 1880, who spent much of his life in Mooresville. The contest committee had asked for designs “striking in symbolism” in colours other than those of the US flag, and his gold torch on blue met both, the Indiana Historical Bureau says.
Read next
- Next in US state flagsFlag of IowaIowa’s flag has vertical stripes of blue, white and red, with an eagle on the white carrying blue streamers with the state motto, “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain”, and IOWA in red below. The law gives the colours no meaning; the Iowa Legislature says the designer, Dixie Cornell Gebhardt, explained the blue as loyalty, justice and truth, the white as purity and the red as courage.
- The same shape in South American flagsFlag of BrazilBrazil’s flag is a yellow diamond on green holding a blue globe of 27 white stars, the sky over Rio de Janeiro on the morning of 15 November 1889, crossed by a white band with the motto ORDEM E PROGRESSO (“Order and Progress”). Each star stands for a state or the Federal District; the 1889 flag decree said the green and yellow, kept from the empire, recall the victories of the army and navy.
More US state flags
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with letters and numbers, squares and rectangles or stars.
Sources
- Indiana State Flag (Indiana Historical Bureau), Indiana State Flag, Indiana Historical Bureau, Emblems & Symbols (quoting Indiana Code IC 1-2-2 and IC 1-2-3), Indiana Historical Bureau, IC 1-2-2-1, IC 1-2-2-2
- “A Permanent Emblem of Its Own”: The Indiana State Flag & Its Designer (Indiana History Blog), Nicole Poletika, “‘A Permanent Emblem of Its Own:’ The Indiana State Flag & Its Designer”, The Indiana History Blog, 11 January 2017 (updated 12 August 2022), Indiana Historical Bureau, Article text
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 14, 2026. How we research
Added .