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Florida state symbols

Florida has 46 official state symbols. The oldest are the seal of 1868 and the orange blossom of 1909; the newest is the strawberry shortcake, the official state dessert since 2022. Citrus, coastal wildlife and Florida's culture fill out the list, from the state pie to an official rodeo and an official air fair.

46 official designations · every law checked October 23, 2026

Citrus first

Florida’s oldest symbols come from the groves. The orange blossom became the state flower in 1909, chosen to reflect the importance of citrus to the state. Orange juice followed as the state beverage in 1967, and the orange itself as the state fruit in 2005. Florida’s citrus industry has since been badly damaged by citrus greening disease, but the orange remains everywhere in its symbols, including on its license plates.

Wildlife on land and sea

Many of Florida’s symbols are animals. The mockingbird has been the state bird since 1927, by a concurrent resolution rather than a statute. In 1975 the legislature named the manatee the state marine mammal and the porpoise the state saltwater mammal, and in a separate act that year made the Florida largemouth bass and the Atlantic sailfish the state freshwater and saltwater fish. The law names “the porpoise, also commonly known as the dolphin,” although porpoises and dolphins are different animals; the Department of State treats the common bottlenose dolphin as the intended symbol.

The Florida panther, a rare cougar of the southern swamps, became the state animal in 1982 after Florida students voted for it. The American alligator, long an unofficial emblem of Florida’s wetlands, was made the state reptile in 1987. In 2008 Florida added the loggerhead sea turtle and the gopher tortoise, a burrowing reptile whose tunnels shelter more than 350 other species and which is listed as threatened in Florida.

A gem from the moon

Some symbols record moments in Florida’s history. The state gem is the moonstone, adopted in 1970 to honor the Apollo moon landing of 1969, launched from Kennedy Space Center in Brevard County; moonstone is not actually found in Florida. Agatized coral, a stone that forms when silica replaces the skeleton of ancient coral, is the state stone. The S.S. American Victory, a 455-foot steamship built in 1944 and now a museum ship in Tampa, is the state flagship.

Food, music and festivals

Florida has a full menu of symbols: key lime pie (2006), tupelo honey from the Panhandle’s river swamps (2016) and strawberry shortcake (2022), which honors the growers around Plant City who supply most of the nation’s winter strawberries. The state song is Stephen Foster’s “Old Folks at Home,” about the Suwannee River, sung with revised lyrics adopted in 2008, and the state anthem is “Florida, Where the Sawgrass Meets the Sky.”

The list also includes an unusual number of events and institutions: an official play, an official pageant, the Silver Spurs Rodeo in Osceola County, which the law calls the largest rodeo east of the Mississippi, the Calle Ocho festival in Miami’s Little Havana, and several official museums.

The main symbols

The flag, the mockingbird and the orange blossom each have their own page. The Great Seal may be reproduced only with the approval of the Department of State, so it is described here but not shown.

1 1860s 1880s 2 1900s 1 1920s 1 1940s 1 2 1960s 10 10 1980s 5 8 2000s 3 2 2020s
Official symbols adopted per decade. The busiest decades were the 1970s and 1980s, with ten each.

Flag, seal, song, motto and nickname

Animals

Plants and fungi

Earth and sky

Food and drink

Songs, words and language

Culture and history

Government emblems

Places and institutions

Questions about Florida's symbols

What is the Florida state animal?
The Florida panther, adopted in 1982 after a statewide vote by students.
Is the flamingo Florida's state bird?
No. The mockingbird has been the state bird since 1927. Bills to replace it with the American flamingo have been filed in recent years, but the 2026 bill died in committee.
What is Florida's state pie?
Key lime pie, adopted in 2006. Florida also has a state dessert, strawberry shortcake, adopted in 2022.
What is the Florida state song?
"Old Folks at Home," also called "Swanee River," by Stephen Foster, with lyrics revised in 2008. Florida also has a state anthem, "Florida, Where the Sawgrass Meets the Sky."
Photo credits (12)

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