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The United States is one of the rare modern republics built without a European-style coat of arms. Instead, two emblems carry the visual identity of the federal government: the Great Seal of 1782 — a bald eagle bearing an olive branch and a sheaf of arrows, paired with an unfinished pyramid surmounted by the Eye of Providence — and the Stars and Stripes, whose thirteen bands and fifty stars chart both the founding of the Republic and its territorial growth.
| Country | United States of America |
|---|---|
| Great Seal adopted | 20 June 1782, by Resolution of the Continental Congress |
| First US flag | 14 June 1777, by the Flag Resolution of the Second Continental Congress |
| Current 50-star flag | 4 July 1960, after Hawaii's admission as the 50th state |
| Designers (Great Seal) | Charles Thomson, William Barton; refined by three congressional committees (1776–1782) |
| Designer (50-star flag) | Robert G. Heft, 1958 (a high-school class project) |
| Mottos | E Pluribus Unum · Annuit Coeptis · Novus Ordo Seclorum |
| Custodian of the Great Seal | The Secretary of State of the United States |
Great Seal — Bald eagle displayed, with olive branch and thirteen arrows; on a striped shield; motto E Pluribus Unum.
The obverse of the Great Seal is dominated by a bald eagle displayed, wings spread, head turned to its right (the viewer's left), the position of honour in classical heraldry. On its breast rests a shield of thirteen pales (vertical stripes, six argent and seven gules) beneath a blue chief — no supporters, no crown, no helm. The shield is upheld by the eagle itself, as a deliberate symbol of self-reliance.
In its dexter talon (the right, viewer's left) the eagle holds an olive branch with thirteen olives and thirteen leaves, signifying peace. In its sinister talon, a bundle of thirteen arrows, signifying readiness for war. The eagle's gaze is fixed upon the olive branch — the Republic faces toward peace.
From the eagle's beak unfurls a scroll bearing the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM ("Out of many, one"), originally drawn from the Latin epigraphic tradition and adopted by the Continental Congress in 1782 as the founding motto of the federal union. Above the eagle's head, a glory of thirteen stars pierces a circle of clouds, arranged in the constellation of the Great Bear pattern according to Charles Thomson's 1782 description.
The reverse of the Great Seal is the device that appears on the back of the one-dollar bill since 1935. It depicts an unfinished pyramid of thirteen courses of stone, set on a sandy plain, with the date MDCCLXXVI (1776) inscribed on its base. The unfinished state symbolises the Republic as a work in progress.
Above the pyramid floats the Eye of Providence within a triangle, surrounded by a glory of golden rays — a symbol with deep roots in Renaissance Christian iconography and in eighteenth-century Masonic emblem-books. Two further Latin mottos accompany the pyramid:
The Great Seal was the result of three committees of the Continental Congress working over six years. The first, appointed on 4 July 1776 — the very day of independence — included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, and proposed designs ranging from Hercules between Vice and Virtue to scenes of Moses parting the Red Sea. None survived.
The second committee of 1780 was equally unsuccessful. The decisive work fell to a third committee in 1782, advised by the lawyer and heraldic enthusiast William Barton, whose initial sketches were heavily revised by Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Continental Congress. Thomson's design — the eagle with shield, arrows, olives, and stars — was adopted by Congress on 20 June 1782. The first physical die was cut later that year and remains in continuous use, with successive recuttings in 1825, 1841, 1877, 1885, 1904, 1986, and 2003.
The Great Seal is affixed to treaties, presidential proclamations, ambassadorial commissions, and instruments of ratification. By statute (3 U.S.C. § 11–13 and 4 U.S.C. § 41–44), the seal itself is in the custody of the Secretary of State.
Although the shield on the eagle's breast is technically a heraldic shield, the Founders deliberately rejected the European coat-of-arms tradition. There is no helm, no mantling, no crown, no supporters in the classical sense — the eagle is not a supporter but the principal charge. The reasoning was political: heraldry was perceived as inseparable from aristocracy and monarchy. The Great Seal functions as the federal coat of arms, but is rarely called one in American usage.
Flag — the Stars and Stripes — Thirteen horizontal stripes of red and white, a blue canton bearing fifty white five-pointed stars in nine offset rows.
The American flag consists of thirteen horizontal stripes of equal width, alternating seven red and six white, beginning and ending with red. In the upper-left corner — the canton, technically called the union — is a rectangle Azure bearing fifty white five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset rows (alternately five and six stars). The official proportions are 1:1.9 (hoist:fly), with the union covering seven stripes and extending two-fifths of the fly.
On 14 June 1777 — the date now celebrated as Flag Day — the Second Continental Congress at Philadelphia passed the brief Flag Resolution:
Resolved, That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.
The resolution gave neither star arrangement nor specific proportions. Early flags varied considerably: some had stars in a circle (the so-called Betsy Ross flag), others in rows, others scattered. The phrase "new constellation" was the Founders' deliberate astronomical metaphor — the United States as a fresh sign in the heavens.
The flag's authorship is contested. The earliest documented claim of design comes from Francis Hopkinson, signer of the Declaration of Independence and naval-flag designer, who in 1780 petitioned Congress for compensation as the flag's author. Congress acknowledged the claim but did not pay.
The popular legend that Betsy Ross, a Philadelphia seamstress, sewed the first flag at George Washington's request in May 1776, rests entirely on a story told by her grandson William J. Canby in 1870 — almost a century after the supposed event, with no contemporary document. The story is iconic but historically unsupported.
The 50-star canton currently in use was designed in 1958 by Robert G. Heft, a 17-year-old high-school student in Lancaster, Ohio, as a class project anticipating Hawaii's statehood. His teacher gave the design a B-minus; President Eisenhower selected it from over 1,500 submissions, and the teacher subsequently raised the grade to an A.
The number of stars (and, briefly, stripes) has changed with the growth of the Union. By the Flag Act of 1818, Congress fixed the number of stripes at thirteen (in honour of the original colonies) and provided that the number of stars would increase by one on the 4th of July following each state's admission.
| Year | Stars | Trigger |
|---|---|---|
| 1777 | 13 | Original colonies |
| 1795 | 15 | Vermont, Kentucky (also 15 stripes — only flag with non-13 stripes) |
| 1818 | 20 | Stripes returned to 13; stars updated each year thereafter |
| 1912 | 48 | New Mexico, Arizona — the longest-serving design (1912–1959, 47 years) |
| 1959 | 49 | Alaska (admitted 3 January 1959) |
| 1960 | 50 | Hawaii (admitted 21 August 1959); 50-star flag effective 4 July 1960 |
The United States Flag Code (4 U.S.C. §§ 1–10) prescribes how the flag is to be displayed, folded, and disposed of. Key rules: the flag must never touch the ground, never be flown upside down except as a distress signal, must be illuminated if flown at night, and must be retired by burning when worn out. When draped over a coffin, the union should be at the head and over the left shoulder. The flag is flown at half-staff on prescribed days, including 15 May (Peace Officers Memorial Day) and 11 September (Patriot Day).
The United States has no federal heraldic authority — no equivalent of the British College of Arms, the French Conseil français d'héraldique, or the Spanish Cronista de Armas. This absence is itself a political statement: the Founders associated heraldic regulation with monarchical privilege and rejected the very idea of a state office for granting arms.
The consequence is a heraldic landscape that is at once free and chaotic. Federal agencies (the Army, the Department of State, the Postal Service) design their own seals and emblems without external review. States adopt and modify their seals by legislative act. Counties, cities, and even private companies may use coats of arms without authorisation, provided they do not infringe on trademarks.
American official symbolism draws explicitly on the classical Roman republic rather than on medieval European heraldry. The eagle of the Great Seal recalls the aquila of the Roman legions; the Latin mottos quote Virgil; the term "Senate" was borrowed directly from Rome. The Founders deliberately chose this vocabulary as a counterpoint to monarchic France and Britain.
Each of the 50 states retains complete autonomy over its own seal, flag, and emblems — and exercises it diversely. Some, like Massachusetts, preserve colonial Native imagery; others, like California, encode local landscape and economic activity (the grizzly bear, the miner); others again, like the state of Washington, simply display George Washington's profile on a field of green. There is no federal style guide for state heraldry.
The Founders of the Republic rejected the heraldic vocabulary of European monarchies and adopted instead a Great Seal — a single double-sided emblem combining the eagle and the pyramid. The shield on the eagle's breast is technically a coat of arms but is never used independently. There is no federal heraldic authority comparable to those of Britain, France, or Spain.
E Pluribus Unum ("Out of many, one") appears on the obverse on the eagle's scroll, originally referring to the union of the thirteen states. Annuit Coeptis ("He has favoured our undertakings") and Novus Ordo Seclorum ("A new order of the ages") appear on the reverse around the unfinished pyramid, both adapted from Virgil.
The olive branch (in the dexter talon, the position of honour) represents peace; the bundle of thirteen arrows in the sinister talon represents war. The eagle's head is turned toward the olive branch, indicating that the Republic prefers peace but is prepared for war.
The thirteen-step unfinished pyramid on the reverse of the Great Seal symbolises the United States as a work in progress, with each step representing one of the original colonies. The Eye of Providence above the pyramid signifies divine watchfulness over the new nation. The reverse appears on the back of the US one-dollar bill (since 1935).
The 50-star flag was officially adopted on 4 July 1960, after Hawaii became the 50th state on 21 August 1959. The design — fifty stars in nine offset rows — was created by Robert G. Heft, a 17-year-old high school student from Lancaster, Ohio, as a class project that earned a B-minus before being chosen by President Eisenhower.
Almost certainly not. The story rests entirely on the testimony of her grandson William J. Canby in 1870, nearly a century after the supposed events. No contemporary document supports the claim. The earliest documented designer was the signer of the Declaration Francis Hopkinson, who petitioned Congress for compensation as the flag's designer in 1780.
Each of the 50 US states maintains a state seal and a state flag used by the governor, state government, and on official documents. From the bald eagle of New York to the grizzly bear of California, each design encodes local history, geography, and motto. The US state symbols collection is one of the largest sub-national heraldic sets in the world.
Last reviewed by the Emblema Mundi editorial team on 14 June 2026.
