NJ Facts

 

 

 

United States Census Data for NJ

Transportation

NJ State Seal

In 1777 Pierre Eugene du Simitiere created New Jersey's State Seal. It contains five symbols, each of which represents something about New Jersey.

The helmet and the horse's head crest represent New Jersey's independence as a state. They also represent New Jersey's status as one of the first states. In 1787 New Jersey was the third state to sign the U.S. Constitution.

The woman holding a staff with a liberty cap on top is Liberty, who represents freedom. In ancient Rome, former Roman slaves saw a liberty cap as a badge of freedom. Liberty caps became popular again during the Revolutionary War.

The woman on the right is the Roman goddess of grain, Ceres. She holds an ice-cream-cone-shaped basket, called a cornucopia, filled with the many fruits and vegetables produced in New Jersey.

The three plows on the shield symbolize the agricultural tradition of New Jersey.

The state's motto "Liberty and Prosperity" is written on the scroll. 1776 is the year New Jersey became a state.

 

NJ State Flag

The New Jersey State Flag was adopted in 1896. Its official color is buff, which is a yellowish-tan color. The colors of the state flag, buff and dark blue (Jersey blue), were the colors George Washington chose for the flag of New Jersey's army regiments during the Revolutionary War. The state seal is featured on the flag.

State Flower - The Violet

State Bird - Eastern Goldfinch

State Tree - The Red Oak

State Bug - The Honeybee

The honey bee became the state bug when the Legislature enacted the bill, A-671, and Gov. Brendan T. Byrne signed it on June 20, 1974. They were encouraged by a group of children from the Sunnybrae School in Hamilton Township. The children went to the State House with a presentation that included a song and a poem.

State Animal - The Horse

Michael McCarthy and his fifth grade class at Our Lady of Victories School in Harrington Park and James Sweetman, an eighth grader from Freehold, helped make the horse New Jersey's state animal in 1977. The horse is included on the state seal.

State Fish - The Brook Trout

The brook trout is native to New Jersey.

State Shell - The Knobbed Whelk

The knobbed whelk shell is commonly known as the conch shell. Found along NJ beaches and bays, the knobbed whelk is the name of the large marine snail that lives in the shell.

State Fruit - The Blueberry

The blueberry, which was first cultivated in Whitesbog, became the official state fruit in 2004. In 2003, fourth graders at Veteran's Memorial Elementary School in Brick campaigned to make the blueberry the official state fruit. The students had their idea introduced as legislation and conducted a lobbying campaign to see its passage, including media interviews, a letter and petition drive, presentations to local governing bodies, and a trip to the state's blueberry festival in Whitesbog. In addition, the classes traveled to Trenton to make presentations before Senate and Assembly Committees. Elizabeth Coleman White developed the nation's first cultivated blueberry.

State Dinosaur - Hadrosaurus foulkii

In the summer of 1858, Victorian gentleman and fossil hobbyist William Parker Foulke was vacationing in Haddonfield, New Jersey, when he heard that twenty years previous, workers had found gigantic bones in a local marl pit. Foulke spent the the late summer and fall directing a crew of hired diggers shin deep in gray slime. Eventually he found the bones of an animal larger than an elephant with structural features of both a lizard and a bird.