Flag of New Jersey

What the flag shows

• The buff field. Buff is one of the two state colors, with Jersey blue. Since 1965 the law has fixed them as U.S. Army buff and royal blue, by their color-association cable numbers.
• The shield. A blue shield with three plows, for New Jersey’s farming tradition.
• The helmet and horse. A sovereign’s helmet above the shield, facing forward, topped by a horse’s head. Together they stand for New Jersey’s independence as a state.
• Liberty. On one side, holding a pole topped with a liberty cap, a symbol of freedom.
• Ceres. On the other side, the Roman goddess of grain, holding a cornucopia of the state’s produce.
• The scroll. Below, with the motto “Liberty and Prosperity” and the year 1776, when New Jersey became a state.

The coat of arms comes from the Great Seal, created by Pierre Eugène du Simitière in 1777.

Washington’s colors

The flag’s colors predate the flag by more than a century. In general orders of October 2, 1779, George Washington told the New York and New Jersey regiments of the Continental Army to wear blue coats faced with buff. Buff and blue became New Jersey’s colors, and the state flag, adopted in 1896, put the coat of arms on a buff field.

In 1965 the Legislature made buff and Jersey blue the official state colors for the flag and other uses, and pinned each to an exact shade.

Rules for the flag

A 2009 law requires any US or New Jersey flag bought with state money to be made in the United States. The flag shows the coat of arms rather than the Great Seal itself, whose use is limited by law to listed officials unless the secretary of state consents.