Flag of California

On June 14, 1846, a group of American settlers seized the Mexican garrison at Sonoma, declared California an independent republic, and raised a homemade flag. William L. Todd, a relative of Mary Todd Lincoln, painted it. The republic lasted 25 days before U.S. forces claimed California in the Mexican-American War. The flag's design and its name survived.

The original Bear Flag, held by the Society of California Pioneers in San Francisco, burned in the 1906 earthquake fire along with most of the society's collection. For over 50 years after statehood, California had no official state banner. The Native Sons of the Golden West lobbied the legislature to use their marching banner as the basis for an official design.

On February 3, 1911, the California Legislature adopted the current design, ending four decades of competing unofficial versions. The law specified a red star, a brown grizzly walking left, a green grass plot, a red stripe, and the words CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC in condensed gothic type. It set exact proportions, making California's one of the most precisely specified flags in the country.

California's flag uses five colors defined by Textile Color Card Association cable numbers in state law. The official shades are white (cable 70001), Old Glory Red (cable 70180), Irish Green (cable 70168), Maple Sugar brown (cable 70129), and Seal dark brown (cable 70108).

The California grizzly (Ursus arctos californicus) was hunted to extinction by 1922, with the last confirmed sighting recorded near Sequoia. By that year, the bear design was already on the state flag and in dozens of official uses. In 1953, the California Legislature named the grizzly the state animal, three decades after the last wild one died.