Florida State Coat of Arms

The Florida coat of arms is the central design of the state seal and appears on official state documents, the state flag, and government publications. The state flag places the coat of arms at the intersection of a red diagonal cross on a white background.

Unlike most state coats of arms, the Florida design is a landscape scene rather than a traditional heraldic arrangement of quarters and figures. All elements are drawn together into a single image of a Florida shoreline, with the motto In God We Trust running at the base.

Florida became the twenty-seventh state on March 3, 1845. When the Civil War began, Florida seceded from the Union on January 10, 1861, and joined the Confederacy. After the war, Florida was required to write a new state constitution before it could rejoin the Union. The current coat of arms dates to that 1868 constitution.

The 1868 design placed a Seminole woman at the center of the coat of arms, recognizing the Seminole people as part of Florida's identity. The Seminoles are one of the few Native American nations that never signed a formal peace treaty with the United States government. Their presence at the heart of the state's official symbol was a deliberate choice by the 1868 legislature.

The design was revised in 1985 by the Florida Legislature. The revision corrected the depiction of the Seminole woman, updating her clothing and appearance to more accurately reflect Seminole dress. The other elements of the design, the sabal palm, the steamboat, the sun, and the motto, were carried forward without significant change.

The Florida coat of arms presents its symbols as a unified landscape scene, placing all four elements in a single image that describes Florida's environment and history.

The coat of arms describes Florida through its landscape rather than through abstract symbols. Every element is something a person standing in Florida in 1868 could actually see: a Seminole woman, a palm tree, a steamboat on the water, and the sun rising over the horizon.

Placing the Seminole woman at the center was a statement about Florida's history. The Seminoles had survived wars, forced removal attempts, and a century of pressure from the U.S. government. Putting a Seminole figure on the state's official symbol in 1868 acknowledged a presence that could not be erased.

The steamboat and the sun together point toward the future the 1868 legislature imagined: a state connected by water trade and lit by a climate that distinguished Florida from every other state in the Union.

The original Florida coat of arms was adopted in 1868 with the same four elements: the Seminole woman, the sabal palm, the steamboat, and the rising sun. In 1985, the Florida Legislature officially revised the design, primarily to update the depiction of the Seminole woman. Her clothing in the original design did not accurately reflect Seminole dress, and the revision corrected this. The other elements of the design were not substantially changed.