• Year First Flown: 1904
• Designed By: Official Flag Commission
• Design: A flag with a white background and a blue frame, with the West Virginia coat of arms placed in the center. The coat of arms consists of images of: a farmer, a miner, a rock, two rifles, a Phrygian cap, and Rhododendron sprigs.
• Meaning: The white of the background symbolizes purity, while the blue of the frame represents the United States of America. The farmer stands for agriculture, the miner represents industry, and the rock that is placed between them symbolizes strength and steadiness. The date on the rock, June 20, 1863, is the date that Virginia was admitted to the Union. The rifles and the Phrygian cap are symbols of freedom and protection. The state motto "Momtani Semper Liberi" or "Mountaineers are Always Free". The sprigs at the bottom of the shield are from a Rhododendron, which is the state flower of West Virginia.

The state of West Virginia was originally part of Virginia, but when Virginia decided to secede from the United States of America the citizens of the western parts of the state viewed it as their opportunity to break away. These citizens of the mountainous western Virginia had often felt neglected and ignored by the government of Virginia, so they felt they would be better off as their own state. West Virginia was admitted to the Union with the stipulation that it must be a free state and phase out the current conditions of slavery in the area. West Virginia was officially given its statehood on June 20th, 1863, but with the chaos of the Civil War they were unable to develop a state seal until September of that year. The Civil War ended and things calmed down, but the state of West Virginia still didn't get around to creating an official flag. Finally, in 1904, the Saint Louis World's Fair motivated West Virginia to create a flag to represent itself at the exposition. This flag's design consisted of a white background and a blue border, with the state flower (the rhododendron) on the front and the state's coat of arms on the back. This flag was not technically an official state flag of West Virginia while it showed at the World's Fair, but it was officially adopted on February 24th, 1905. Eventually, it was decided that producing a flag with a different design on the front and back was expensive and impractical. So, in 1929 the flowers and the coat of arms were combined into one design of a coat of arms surrounded by rhododendron sprigs.