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Kentucky state symbols

Kentucky has about 50 official state symbols. The oldest are the seal and motto of 1792; the newest, added in 2026, include a state dog, official shelter pets, a state amphibian, a state skunk and a state mushroom. In between, Kentucky has named an official soft drink, an official sports car and the birthplace of beer cheese.

50 official designations · every law checked October 23, 2026

The first cardinal state

Kentucky’s oldest nature symbols date from 1926, when the legislature adopted the “native redbird, commonly known as the Kentucky cardinal,” as the state bird and goldenrod as the state flower. Kentucky was the first of seven states to choose the cardinal. Its state tree has a more complicated history. In 1976 the legislature chose the Kentucky coffeetree, partly to set Kentucky apart from neighboring states that had the tulip poplar. In 1994 it changed its mind and adopted the tulip poplar anyway.

Horses, music and the Bluegrass

Kentucky’s symbols celebrate its culture. The Thoroughbred became the state horse in 1996. Bluegrass music, named for the band of Kentuckian Bill Monroe, became the official state music in 2007, and Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky” the state bluegrass song in 1988. The Appalachian dulcimer is the state instrument, clogging the state dance, and the Mighty Wurlitzer theatre organ at Lexington’s Kentucky Theatre the official theatre pipe organ.

Rocks reshuffled

In 2024 Kentucky reorganized its geology symbols. Coal, the state mineral since 1998, was reclassified as the state rock, since geologically coal is a rock, not a mineral. Kentucky agate, the state rock since 2000, became the state gemstone. And calcite became the new state mineral. The brachiopod, a shelled sea creature common in Kentucky’s limestone, has been the state fossil since 1986.

Drinks, guns and cars

Some symbols are pure Kentucky. Milk is the state drink, and Ale-8-One, a ginger soda made in Winchester since 1926, is named by law as an original Kentucky soft drink. The Kentucky long rifle, the frontier rifle carried by early settlers, is the official gun. The Corvette, built in Bowling Green, is the official sports car. Clark County is the official birthplace of beer cheese, and Bardstown’s Kentucky Bourbon Festival is the official bourbon festival.

The 2026 additions

In 2026 a bill that began as a proposal for a state dog grew into a package. It made the Treeing Walker Coonhound the state dog, named shelter and rescue cats and dogs the official pets, and added the eastern spotted skunk as the state nongame mammal and the eastern hellbender, North America’s largest salamander, as the state amphibian. A separate law made the indigo milk cap, a strikingly blue mushroom, the state mushroom.

The main symbols

The flag, the cardinal and goldenrod each have their own page. Kentucky also has an official pledge to its flag, adopted in 2000.

2 1790s 1820s 1850s 1880s 1 1910s 3 1940s 1 1 1970s 5 8 15 2000s 6 8 2020s
Official symbols adopted per decade. The busiest decade was the 2000s, with 15.

Flag, seal, song, motto and nickname

Animals

Plants and fungi

Earth and sky

Food and drink

Songs, words and language

Culture and history

Places and institutions

Questions about Kentucky's symbols

What is the Kentucky state animal?
Kentucky has no single state animal. Its official animals include the gray squirrel (wild animal game species), the Thoroughbred (horse), the Treeing Walker Coonhound (dog), the eastern spotted skunk (nongame mammal) and the eastern hellbender (amphibian).
What is Kentucky's state soft drink?
Ale-8-One, a ginger-flavored soda made in Winchester, which a 2013 law named an original Kentucky soft drink.
What is Kentucky's state rock?
Coal, since 2024. Before that coal was the state mineral; the 2024 law reclassified it as a rock, made Kentucky agate the state gemstone and named calcite the state mineral.
What is the Kentucky state song?
"My Old Kentucky Home" by Stephen Foster, adopted in 1928. In 1986 the legislature replaced a racial slur in the lyrics with the word "people." Kentucky also has a state bluegrass song, Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky."
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