How we verify

Where the facts come from

State law first. A state symbol is official because a law, resolution or official act says so, so that is where we start. Of the 1,574 symbols in our records, 1,547 cite the statute, session law or resolution behind them, linked to the legislature's own code wherever it is online. For the few where we could not locate the law's text, such as several designations that Oregon made by legislative resolution, the page cites the state's official list of its symbols instead.

Official state sources. For history, origins and context we rely on the states' own publications: secretaries of state, state archives and libraries, legislative manuals and blue books, and state historical societies.

Federal data. Population figures are the Census Bureau's estimates for July 1, 2025, areas come from the Census Bureau's state area measurements, and regions follow the Census Bureau's official regions and divisions. Shared borders are computed from Census boundary files.

Reference works. For history we also use encyclopedias published by universities and state humanities councils, such as the Encyclopedia of Alabama, NCpedia, the Handbook of Texas and Encyclopedia Virginia. For birds, trees and flowers we use sources such as the USDA Forest Service, university extension services, the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

In all, the pages cite more than 2,500 source documents from more than 490 websites. Each page lists its sources at the bottom, and the sources page lists the official sites used for each state.

How each fact is checked

Each state starts as a fact sheet: its statehood, capital, capitol building, flag, seal, song, motto, nicknames and every official symbol, with a source attached to every fact. A fact without a source does not go on the sheet.

A separate fact-checking pass then re-reads every sheet against its sources and flags anything wrong, imprecise or unsupported. Across the 50 states it flagged 126 problems, 30 of them errors, 95 imprecise statements and one claim the source did not support. Every one was corrected or removed before publication. Typical corrections changed the year John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High," one of Colorado's state songs, was released from 1973 to 1972, and the year New Haven's old statehouse was torn down from 1885 to 1889.

Each page shows the date its facts were last verified. State legislatures add and change symbols every year, so we check new session laws and update the pages when a designation is added, replaced or repealed.

How the pages are written

The text on StatesFacts is written from the checked fact sheets, not copied from them or from any other site. Every statement in the text has to trace back to a fact with a source; anything that cannot be traced is cut. When a draft makes a comparison, such as "the most popular state bird" or "the most common state tree," the figures behind it are checked against the full data for all 50 states.

Counts and rankings, such as the number of symbols a state has or the decade in which most were adopted, are calculated directly from the data rather than typed in, so they stay consistent across pages.

Judgment calls

Legends. Many symbol stories rest on tradition. Where a story cannot be documented, such as the hiding of Connecticut's charter in the Charter Oak or Thomas Jefferson calling Delaware a jewel, we say "reportedly" or "by tradition" rather than presenting it as fact.

Disputed origins. When historians disagree, we give the main explanations and say that the question is open. The origins of names such as Idaho, Maine and Rhode Island, and of nicknames such as "Hoosier," are genuinely unknown.

Dates. Adoption years come from the law itself or from the state's official account. A bill can pass in one year and take effect in the next, so sources sometimes differ by a year; we follow the state's own record and give full dates where they matter.

What counts as a symbol. We count every designation made by state law or official resolution, including official songs, mottos and nicknames, along with the flag and seal. Traditional nicknames that no law adopts are shown and labeled as traditional, but they are not counted.

Images

Flags and species photographs come from Wikimedia Commons and are used under their licenses, which are credited on each page. Of the 297 images on the site, most are in the public domain or under Creative Commons licenses. We do not show state seals: many states restrict how their seal may be reproduced, so we describe each seal in words instead.

Corrections

If you find a fact that does not match its source, or a symbol that has been added or repealed, please tell us. We check every report against the law or the original source, correct the page and update its verification date.