Flag of California
California's flag is the Bear Flag: a white field with a red star in the top corner, a grizzly bear walking on a patch of grass, the words CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC and a red stripe along the bottom. The Legislature adopted it in 1911, but the design goes back to a homemade flag raised at Sonoma in June 1846.
The Bear Flag Revolt
The flag began as a piece of protest. On June 14, 1846, a group of American settlers seized the Mexican garrison town of Sonoma, north of San Francisco Bay, and declared California an independent republic. They needed a flag, and William Todd made one from unbleached cotton. He drew a star, which he modeled on the lone star of Texas, a grizzly bear, chosen because the animals were then common in California, and the words “California Republic.”
The republic did not last. The Mexican-American War had already begun, and within weeks US forces raised the American flag at Sonoma and the Bear Flag came down. But the flag stayed in Californians’ memory, and it was in wide use long before it was official. The Capitol Museum calls it the oldest unofficial symbol of the state.
Adopted in 1911, specified in 1953
The Legislature made the Bear Flag the state flag in 1911. By then the original no longer existed: it had been kept by the Society of California Pioneers in San Francisco and burned in the fires that followed the 1906 earthquake.
The 1911 law did not spell out the design in detail. In 1953 the Legislature fixed the details in section 420 of the Government Code. The flag must be two-thirds as wide as it is long, the red stripe must be one-sixth of the flag’s width, and the law even names the textile colors to use, including Old Glory red, Irish green and Maple Sugar brown. The bear on the modern flag is based on a painting by the 19th-century artist Charles Nahl.
What the parts mean
- The grizzly bear was chosen because grizzlies were common in California in 1846. The California grizzly became the state animal in 1953, but none had been seen in the wild since the 1920s.
- The red star was modeled on the lone star of Texas, another republic that had broken away from Mexico.
- “California Republic” recalls the republic proclaimed at Sonoma.
Who uses it
Under section 420, the Bear Flag is the official flag of every state agency and of every county, city and town in California. The governor also has a separate flag of their own, set out in sections 428 and 429 of the Government Code: Yale blue with a white star in each corner, a golden fringe and a seal in the center.
Questions about the California state flag
- What does the California flag look like?
- A white flag with a red five-pointed star in the upper left corner, a brown grizzly bear walking on green grass in the middle, the words CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC below the bear and a red stripe along the bottom.
- Why is there a bear on the California flag?
- The settlers who made the first Bear Flag in 1846 chose the grizzly because the bears were common in California at the time. The California grizzly has since been hunted to extinction.
- Why does the flag say California Republic?
- It recalls the short-lived California Republic that American settlers proclaimed at Sonoma in June 1846, during their revolt against Mexican rule. The republic lasted only weeks before the United States took control.
- When was the California flag adopted?
- In 1911. Its exact proportions and colors were only fixed in law in 1953.
Sources
- Flag California State Capitol Museum
- California Government Code section 420 California.Public.Law (text of the California codes)
- The Bear Flag Museum of the City of San Francisco