Flag of Kentucky
Kentucky’s flag is navy blue with the state seal in the centre: two men embracing, ringed by the motto “United we stand, divided we fall”, inside a wreath of goldenrod with “Commonwealth of Kentucky” above. The Kentucky Historical Society says the two men are symbolic, a frontiersman for the state’s frontier settlers and a statesman for Kentuckians who served in government, and not Daniel Boone and Henry Clay.
Easily confused with
How to read it
Kentucky Revised Statutes § 2.030 sets the flag: navy blue silk, nylon, wool or cotton bunting, or another suitable material, with the seal of the Commonwealth in the centre, encircled by a wreath whose lower half is goldenrod in bloom and whose upper half is the words “Commonwealth of Kentucky”. The size may vary, but the length is 1.9 times the width (the height), and the seal with its ring is about two thirds of the width across. The Secretary of State keeps the approved official drawings, which every official flag must match in colour and design, and the ornament at the head of the staff is a Kentucky cardinal in bronze, brass or another suitable material. The General Assembly adopted the flag by an act approved on 26 March 1918, which asked for “navy blue silk or bunting” with the seal in a wreath of goldenrod; the section was amended in 1962, 2002 and 2009. The seal, under § 2.020, has “two friends embracing each other”, with “Commonwealth of Kentucky” over their heads and around them the motto “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”.
Also searched as: flag of kentucky, kentucky flag, kentucky flag meaning, kentucky state flag.
Who are the two men on the Kentucky flag?
They stand for no one in particular, and they are not Daniel Boone and Henry Clay, Ron Bryant of the Kentucky Historical Society writes. The act of 20 December 1792 that created the seal asked only for “two friends embracing”, and the figures have changed many times since: men in formal dress embracing, men in frontier buckskin shaking hands, men in stovepipe hats, slouch hats or no hats. In 1952 the Courier-Journal described a seal on the Capitol’s bronze fittings where two statesmen join the right hand of one to the left hand of the other, a clasp it said nobody can make face to face, and found the same clasp on the state flag. In 1962 the General Assembly fixed the figures as a frontiersman clasping the shoulder and shaking the hand of a statesman.
The motto comes from John Dickinson’s “Liberty Song” of 1768, Bryant writes; Kentucky’s first governor, Isaac Shelby, was fond of its lines “Then join in hand, brave Americans all; By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.”
Read next
- Next in US state flagsFlag of LouisianaLouisiana’s flag is blue with a white pelican tearing at her breast to feed her young in the nest, over a white ribbon with the state motto in blue. The flag law requires three drops of blood on her breast; 64 Parishes, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities’ encyclopedia, calls the image the Pelican in her Piety, a Catholic symbol of Christ’s sacrifice for his flock.
- The same shape in Coin gradesAG (about good)AG stands for about good: a very heavily worn coin that falls just short of good, with the rims worn into the lettering. It is a single grade on the 70-point Sheldon scale, AG 3.
More US state flags
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with circles, letters and numbers or squares and rectangles.
Sources
- KRS 2.030 (state flag), Kentucky Revised Statutes § 2.030, State flag, with history, Kentucky General Assembly (Legislative Research Commission), KRS 2.030 (1)–(3) and history
- KRS 2.020 (state seal), Kentucky Revised Statutes 2.020, State seal, Kentucky General Assembly (Legislative Research Commission), KRS 2.020
- Moments in Kentucky Legislative History 44: State Flag (1918) (Kentucky Historical Society), Kentucky Historical Society, “Moments in Kentucky Legislative History”, no. 44, State Flag (1918), Kentucky Historical Society, 44. State Flag (1918)
- The Kentucky State Seal (Ron Bryant, Kentucky Historical Society), Ron Bryant, Kentucky Historical Society, “The Kentucky State Seal”, on the Kentucky Secretary of State’s history pages, Kentucky Historical Society, Full text
- Kentucky Can’t Make Up Its Mind What the State Seal Should Show (Courier-Journal, 1952), Allan M. Trout, “Kentucky Can’t Make Up Its Mind What the State Seal Should Show”, The Courier-Journal, Louisville, 28 August 1952 (copy on the Kentucky Secretary of State’s history pages), The Courier-Journal, Article text
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 14, 2026. How we research
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