List of California state symbols
Encyclopedia
State symbols
- Beverage: WineWineWine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
- Bird: California QuailCalifornia QuailThe California Quail, Callipepla californica, also known as the California Valley Quail or Valley Quail, is a small ground-dwelling bird in the New World quail family...
(Callipepla californica) - Colors: BlueBlueBlue is a colour, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440–490 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colours. On the HSV Colour Wheel, the complement of blue is yellow; that is, a colour corresponding to an equal...
, which represents the sky and goldGold (color)Gold, also called golden, is one of a variety of orange-yellow color blends used to give the impression of the color of the element gold....
, which represents the color of the precious metal found by forty-niners in the state's hills. - Dance: West Coast SwingWest Coast SwingWest Coast Swing is a partner dance with roots in Lindy Hop. It is characterized by a distinctive elastic look that results from its basic extension-compression technique of partner connection, and is danced primarily in a slotted area on the dance floor...
- Fife and drum corps: California Consolidated Drum Band
- Fish: Golden troutGolden TroutThe golden trout is a sub-species of the rainbow trout, and it closley resembles the juvenile Rainbow trout. The fish is also known as the California golden trout and is native to Golden Trout Creek, Volcano Creek and the South Fork Kern River. Another variant, O. m...
(Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita) (fresh water), GaribaldiGaribaldi (fish)The Garibaldi or Garibaldi damselfish is a brightly colored orange fish of the damselfish family that is native to the North-Eastern subtropical parts of the Pacific Ocean, ranging from Monterey Bay, California, to Guadalupe Island, Baja California...
(Hypsypops rubicundus) (salt water) - Flags:
- Flag of CaliforniaFlag of CaliforniaThe Bear Flag is the official flag of the state of California. The precursor of the flag was first flown during the 1846 Bear Flag Revolt and was also known as the Bear Flag.-Design:...
(since 1911) - Flag of the California RepublicCalifornia RepublicThe California Republic, also called the Bear Flag Republic, is the name used for a period of revolt against Mexico initially proclaimed by a handful of American settlers in Mexican California on June 14, 1846, in Sonoma. This was shortly before news of the Mexican–American War had reached the area...
(1846)
- Flag of California
- Flower: California poppyCalifornia poppyThe California poppy is a perennial and annual plant, native to the United States, and the official state flower of California.- Description :...
(Eschsholzia californica) - Folk dance: Square DanceSquare danceSquare dance is a folk dance with four couples arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, beginning with Couple 1 facing away from the music and going counter-clockwise until getting to Couple 4. Couples 1 and 3 are known as the head couples, while Couples 2 and 4 are the side couples...
- Fossil: Saber-toothed cat (Smilodon californicus)
- Gemstone: BenitoiteBenitoiteBenitoite is a rare blue barium titanium silicate mineral, found in hydrothermally altered serpentinite. Benitoite fluoresces under short wave ultraviolet light, appearing bright blue to bluish white in color. The more rarely seen clear to white benitoite crystals fluoresce red under long-wave UV...
- Gold Rush Ghost Town: BodieBodie, CaliforniaBodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States, about 75 miles southeast of Lake Tahoe. It is located east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8379 feet . As Bodie Historic District, the U.S. Department of the...
- Grass: Purple NeedlegrassNassella pulchraNassella pulchra is a species of grass known by the common name purple needlegrass. It is native to California, where it occurs throughout the coastal hills, valleys, and mountain ranges, as well as the Sacramento Valley and parts of the Sierra Nevada foothills, and Baja California.It grows in many...
(Nassella pulchra) - Historical Society: California Historical Society
- Insect: California dogface butterflyCalifornia dogface butterflyZerene eurydice, the California dogface butterfly, is sometimes placed in the related genus as Colias eurydice. It is endemic to California, and its state insect insignia.-First state insect:...
(Colias eurydice) - License plate: "White with "California" in a red script across the top."
- Mammal: California grizzly bear (Ursus californicus)
- Marine mammal: Gray whaleGray WhaleThe gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus, is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of about , a weight of , and lives 50–70 years. The common name of the whale comes from the gray patches and white mottling on its dark skin. Gray whales were...
(Eschrichtius robustus) - Military Museum: California State Military Museum
- Mineral: GoldGoldGold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
- Motto: EurekaEureka (word)"Eureka" is an interjection used to celebrate a discovery, a transliteration of a word attributed to Archimedes.-Etymology:The word comes from ancient Greek εὕρηκα heúrēka "I have found ", which is the 1st person singular perfect indicative active of the verb heuriskō "I find"...
- Nicknames: Golden State (official)
- Poet Laureate: Carol Muske-DukesCarol Muske-DukesCarol Muske-Dukes is an American poet, novelist, essayist, critic, and professor, and the current poet laureate of California. Her most recent book of poetry, Sparrow , chronicling the love and loss of Muske-Dukes’ late husband, actor David Dukes, was a National Book Award finalist.-Life:She...
- Prehistoric artifact: Chipped stone bear
- Reptile: Desert tortoiseDesert TortoiseThe desert tortoise is a species of tortoise native to the Mojave desert and Sonoran desert of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. They can be located in western Arizona, southeastern California, southern Nevada, and southwestern Utah. The species name agassizii is in honor of...
(gopherus agassizi) - Rock: Serpentine
- SealSeals of the U.S. statesThe following gallery displays the official seals of the 50 states, federal district, and territories of the United States of America:-See also:* Coat of Arms of the U.S. States* Seals of Governors of the U.S. States* Flags of the U.S. states...
: The Seal of CaliforniaSeal of CaliforniaThe Great Seal of the State of California was adopted at the California state Constitutional Convention of 1849 and has undergone minor design changes since then, the last being the standardization of the seal in 1937...
: "The seal features Greek goddess Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war; a California grizzly bear (the official state animal) feeding on grape vines, representing California wine production; a sheaf of grain, representing agriculture; a miner, representing the California Gold Rush and the mining industry; sailing ships, representing the state's economic power; and San Francisco Bay or the Sacramento River. The phrase "Eureka," meaning "I have found it!" is the California state motto." - Silver Rush Ghost Town: CalicoCalico, CaliforniaCalico is a ghost town and former mining town in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Calico Mountains of the Mojave Desert region of Southern California, it was founded in 1881 as a silver mining town, and today has been converted into a county park. Located off...
- Slogan: Find Yourself Here
- Soil: San JoaquinSan Joaquin (soil)San Joaquin is an officially designated state insignia, the State Soil of the U.S. state of California.The California Central Valley has more than 500,000 acres of San Joaquin soils, named for the south end of that valley. This series is the oldest continuously recognized soil series within the...
- Song: I Love You, CaliforniaI Love You, CaliforniaI Love You, California is the official state song of California. The lyrics were written by Francis Bernard Silverwood , a Los Angeles clothier and the words were subsequently put to music by Abraham Franklin Frankenstein , then conductor of the Orpheum Theatre Orchestra...
- Tall ship: Californian (schooner)Californian (schooner)Californian was built in 1984 as a replica of the revenue service cutter C.W. Lawrence, which operated off the Californian coast in the 1850s. On July 23, 2003, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Bill No...
- Tartan: California State TartanCalifornia State TartanThe California State Tartan is the official tartan of the State of California.Created July 23, 2001 and defined under law in California state government code 424.3,...
- Theater: Pasadena Playhouse
- Tree: Sequoia (California redwood): Sequoiadendron giganteumSequoiadendronSequoiadendron giganteum is the sole living species in the genus Sequoiadendron, and one of three species of coniferous trees known as redwoods, classified in the family Cupressaceae in the subfamily Sequoioideae, together with Sequoia sempervirens and...
(Giant Sequoia), Sequoia sempervirens (Coast Redwood) - United States quarter dollar - California 2005:
See also
- List of California-related topics
- Lists of United States state insignia
- State of California