Kansas State Colors | Blue Gold

Kansas has not passed a separate state-colors law. Blue and gold are the traditional state colors through the Kansas state flag, adopted on March 23, 1927, and governed by Kansas Statute 73-702, which specifies the flag as a blue field matching the blue of the United States flag, bearing the state seal at center, the sunflower crest above, and from 1961 onward the word 'KANSAS' in gold block lettering below. Kansas Statute 73-702 is one of the more detailed state flag specifications in the United States, prescribing the relative dimensions of the sunflower — 'having a diameter of two-thirds of the space of the banner' — and the twisted blue-and-gold bar beneath it that represents the Louisiana Purchase, closely tied to Kansas nickname history.

The path to the 1927 flag was a 13-year process of rancorous debate that began in 1914 following Kansas's semicentennial of statehood. Governor Arthur Capper initiated the flag discussion in 1915 by writing to other states to learn how they had selected their flags. A 1916 DAR design competition produced a winning entry by Esther Northrup of Lawrence featuring red, white, and blue stripes with a gold sunflower on a blue canton, but the Kansas Legislature rejected it in 1917. Further designs were proposed, including one by Topeka artist Albert T. Reid featuring a gold sunflower on blue that received popular acceptance. The legislature adopted a blue-field state banner in 1925 — designed to hang from a horizontal bar and unsuitable for display alongside other state flags — before finally adopting the vertical flag designed by Hazel Avery in 1927.

Kansas's blue and gold are rooted in two of the state's most defining natural and historical realities: the vast sky and the wild native sunflower. The deep blue that dominates the flag's field is the blue of the endless Kansas sky — the sky that arches unbroken over the Flint Hills tallgrass prairie, the High Plains wheat fields, and the Smoky Hills — while the gold of the sunflower is the color of the state's defining wildflower and its most important agricultural crop. Together, blue and gold function as a color shorthand for the Kansas landscape itself: the deep sky and the golden prairie that stretch from the Missouri River to the Colorado border.

Blue and gold dominate the Kansas state flag, governed by Kansas Statute 73-702, which flies at the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka and all state government buildings. Kansas also maintains a separate state banner — adopted June 30, 1953, and governed by its own statutory provision — featuring a single large sunflower with gold petals and a brown center on a solid blue field, providing a simplified blue-and-gold alternative to the more complex state flag for use by the Kansas National Guard and in the governor's office. The Kansas state seal, specified by the first Kansas Legislature in 1861 and depicting scenes of pioneer life including a farmer plowing, a steamboat on the Kansas River, a wagon train heading west, and Native Americans hunting bison, uses a broader palette of colors, but the flag's blue-and-gold framework remains the dominant public imagery for Kansas in official state communications, athletic contexts, and public branding. The University of Kansas uses crimson and blue as its official colors, while Kansas State University uses purple and silver-white — but the state government's official blue and gold, drawn directly from the 1927 flag, remain the foundation of Kansas's governmental public imagery and are cataloged in U.S. state colors.

For comparative statehood context, this color history is often read with states and capital cities reference data.