West Virginia is a constituent state of the United States of America which is the only state to be admitted under the presidential proclamation. The state was made a part of the union as the 35th state of the US in 1863. West Virginia is a relatively small state whose border extends Pennsylvania to the north, Maryland and Virginia to the east, Kentucky to the southwest and Ohio to the northwest.
The flag of West Virginia has the aesthetically designed coat of arms around which a wreath of a big Rhododendron maximum is placed. The flower was initially declared the state flower in 1903. The design was grooved with the feature of big laurel on the obverse flag sede as a representation of West Virginia in St. Louis, Missouri at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The flag then had white background with a blue border and the state coat of arms designated along with part of the state seal which was designed by Joseph H.D. Debar and was adopted in 1863 featured on the reverse. On February 25, 1907, the flag got the switch on its position of the state arms traversed to obverse and flower traversed to the reverse with addition of a scroll with the phrase “State of West Virginia” beneath the arms. Later, in 1929, the scroll was moved further above the arms.
The coat of arms of the flag has a farmer and a miner who flank a rock with date inscribed on it and the date June 20, 1863 belongs to West Virginia statehood. The cap of liberty and the crossed rifles placed are the symbolic representation of the Latin motto implicated below with inscribed “Montani semper liberi” which means ‘Mountaineers are always free’. This associates a historical reference that the mountainous area of West Virginia get back the unionship from rest of state in 1861 to secede slave-holdings which was the part of Confederacy. On march 7, 1929, the legislature proposed a single frame state of arms with big laurel branches to be shown on both the sides.
