Excelsior (motto)
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| Use | Civil and state flag |
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| Adopted | April 2, 1901 |
Variant flag of State of New York
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| Name | Flag of the Governor of New York |
| Coat of arms of the State of New York | |
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Great Seal of the State of New York
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| Armiger | State of New York |
| Adopted | 1778 (Seal and CoA) |
| Escutcheon | Azure, in a landscape, the sun in fess, rising in splendor or, behind a range of three mountains, the middle one the highest; in base a ship and sloop under sail, passing and about to meet on a river, bordered below by a grassy shore fringed with shrubs, all proper. |
| Supporters | Liberty and Justice |
| Motto | Excelsior |
The coat of arms of the State of New York was formally adopted in 1778, and appears as a component of the state's flag and seal.
The shield displays a masted ship and a sloop on the Hudson River (symbols of inland and foreign commerce), bordered by a grassy shore and a mountain range in the background with the sun rising behind it. The unheraldic nature of the Hudson River landscape reveals the modern origin of the design.
The shield has two supporters:
A banner below the shield shows the motto , a Latin word meaning "higher", "superior", "lordly", commonly translated as "Ever Upward."
The shield is surmounted by a crest consisting of an eagle surmounting a world globe.
The flag of the State of New York is the coat of arms on a solid blue background. The state seal of New York is the coat of arms surrounded by the words "The Great Seal of the State of New York."
The official blazon for the coat of arms is:
According to Joseph Gavit in New York History, Volume XXXI, the seal symbolizes the following:
The coat of arms of the state flag was adopted in 1778 and the present flag is a modern version of a Revolutionary War flag. The original is at the Albany Institute of History & Art.
The legislature changed the field of the flag from buff to blue by a law enacted on April 2, 1901.
In 2001, the North American Vexillological Association surveyed its members on the designs of the 72 U.S. state, U.S. territorial, and Canadian provincial flags. After the survey was completed, NAVA members chose the flag of New York to be ranked 53rd out of the 72.
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Wikipedia