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Kansas state symbols

Kansas has 35 official state symbols. The oldest are the seal and motto of 1861; the newest is the Kansas Railroad Hall of Fame, designated in 2026. Kansas has three official fossils, one for the sea, one for the air and one for land, and many of its symbols were proposed by schoolchildren.

35 official designations · every law checked October 23, 2026

Symbols of the prairie

Many Kansas symbols come from the grasslands that once covered the state. The wild sunflower has been the state flower since 1903, the western meadowlark the state bird since 1937 and the cottonwood, which grows in every Kansas county and gave early settlers their building timber, the state tree since 1937. The American buffalo, which once roamed the Kansas plains in vast herds, became the state animal in 1955. Little bluestem, a prairie grass, was added in 2010, and Harney silt loam, a prairie soil, in 1990.

Chosen by students

Kansas children have a long record of shaping its symbols. More than 121,000 schoolchildren voted for the meadowlark, and the statute still says the bird was chosen because they preferred it. Schoolchildren petitioned for the honeybee in 1976. A sixth-grade class in Caldwell nominated the ornate box turtle during the state’s 125th birthday year in 1986. A second-grade class at OK Elementary in Wichita began the campaign for the barred tiger salamander in 1993. An Overland Park fourth grader, Casey Friend, pushed for the 2018 law that named a state rock, mineral, gemstone and fish. And students from Sabetha, Valley Falls and Healy backed the sandhill plum as state fruit in 2022.

Three fossils

During the Cretaceous period much of Kansas lay under a shallow inland sea, and its fossils reflect that. In 2014 the legislature named two: Tylosaurus, a giant mosasaur, a sea-going reptile that grew more than 40 feet long, as the state marine fossil, and Pteranodon, a flying reptile with a wingspan of more than 24 feet, as the state flying fossil. Neither was a dinosaur.

In 2023 Kansas added a dinosaur: Silvisaurus condrayi, a one-ton armored ankylosaur about 13 feet long, as the state land fossil. Rancher Warren Condray found its skeleton on his Ottawa County land in 1955, and his grandson, a Goddard teacher, testified for the bill with his sixth graders. It is the only dinosaur thought to have lived on land in what is now Kansas; other Kansas dinosaurs are known from carcasses that drifted out into the sea.

Rocks, gems and grapes

The 2018 law named Greenhorn limestone the state rock, galena, a lead ore whose mining the law credits with drawing settlers to the region, the state mineral, and jelinite, a rare amber once called kansasite, the state gemstone. In 2019 Kansas named two official wine grapes, Chambourcin for red wine and Vignoles for white.

Trains, festivals and an elevator

Kansas grew up with the railroads, and two recent symbols honor them: Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe locomotive No. 3415, built in 1919, as the state steam locomotive, and the Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad as the state heritage railroad, both in 2024. In 2026 Wichita’s Great Plains Transportation Museum became the home of the official Kansas Railroad Hall of Fame. Kansas also has official festivals for wheat in Wellington and watermelon in Clyde, an official stone bridge capital in Cowley County, which has 18 stone arch bridges built before 1910, and an official cage elevator in the Capitol.

The main symbols

The flag, the western meadowlark and the sunflower each have their own page. The state song is “Home on the Range,” and Kansas also has two official marches, “The Kansas March” (1935) and “Here’s Kansas” (1992). The 1925 state banner, a sunflower on blue, is still on the books alongside the flag.

2 1860s 1880s 1 1900s 2 1920s 3 1 1940s 1 1960s 1 1 1980s 3 2 2000s 13 5 2020s
Official symbols adopted per decade. The busiest decade was the 2010s, with 13.

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 Kansas's symbols

What is the Kansas state animal?
The American buffalo, or bison, adopted in 1955.
What are the Kansas state fossils?
Kansas has three. Tylosaurus, a giant sea reptile, is the state marine fossil and Pteranodon, a flying reptile, the state flying fossil, both adopted in 2014. Silvisaurus condrayi, an armored dinosaur, became the state land fossil in 2023.
What is the Kansas state song?
"Home on the Range," adopted in 1947. Its words began as a poem by Brewster Higley, published in a Kansas newspaper in the early 1870s.
Does Kansas have a state fish?
Yes. The channel catfish, adopted in 2018.
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