Flag of Utah

How to read it

The flag is set by Utah Code § 63G-1-501, re-enacted by chapter 451 of the 2023 General Session (S.B. 31) and in effect from 9 March 2024. It is a rectangle three units high and five long, divided by two irregular horizontal lines into blue at the top, white in the middle and red at the bottom. The top of the white takes the shape of a mountain with five peaks, the centre peak tallest, following the top point of the hexagon. The blue hexagon in the centre holds a smaller gold hexagon outline, a gold beehive of five sections with a small semicircle cut from the base of the lowest, and a white five-pointed star below the beehive. In the law’s words the blue is Utah’s skies and faith, the white its snowy mountains and peace, with the peaks for its indigenous peoples, and the red the red rocks of southern Utah and perseverance. The law ties the beehive to 1847, the year pioneers first settled Utah, and the star to 1896, the year of statehood. The flag is in the public domain, and the lieutenant governor sets the standards for making it. The Utah State Library says Governor Spencer J. Cox signed the bill on 21 March 2023 and the flag became official on Utah State Flag Day, 9 March 2024, 113 years after the first state flag was adopted on 9 March 1911.

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The historic state flag

The old flag was not abolished. Utah Code § 63G-1-503 keeps it as the historic state flag: a blue field with, in natural colours, a shield under an American eagle with outstretched wings, six arrows across the top of the shield, the word “Industry” above a beehive with sego lilies either side, “Utah” and “1847” below, two crossed American flags behind, “1896” beneath and a narrow gold circle round it all. It is flown on state property on legal holidays as the governor decides and at the Capitol during the annual session of the Legislature, and wherever both are flown it goes beneath the new flag. Anyone may fly it. KSL reported that the bill includes three drawings of the historic flag, all minor variants of the century-old design.

How the new design was chosen

The State Library says Governor Cox and Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson started the More Than A Flag campaign in 2022 and received over 7,000 submissions by the April deadline, 5,702 of them designs and 2,500 of those from students. KSL reported that the Senate passed the final bill 19 to 9 and the House 40 to 35, adopting a design approved by the Utah State Flag Task Force and amended by the Senate; Mark Brooks was one of its designers. Opponents, among them the president of the International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers, wanted the dates 1847 and 1896 that the old flag carries; supporters answered that the beehive and star stand for them. The State Library says the red is slightly warmer than the red of the US flag.