page_title: Seal of New York City
section_title: 1654 seal
hierarchical_section_title: Seal of New York City / History / 1654 seal
caption_attribution_description: English: First official seal of New Amsterdam, later New York City, granted by the Dutch West India Company, 1654. At top is the insignia of the Dutch West India Company. The scroll at bottom reads "Sigillum Amstelo-Damensis In Novo Belgio," which is Latin for "Seal of Amsterdam in New Netherland."
context_page_description: The seal of New York City is the city's official corporate insignia. According to the city's Administrative Code, it is used to identify documents or publications issued under the authority of the city or its departments. It is also engraved into property owned by the city, used to identify officers of the city, and featured on the city's official flag.
  New York City has had an official seal since 1654, when the city was the Dutch settlement known as New Amsterdam. The seal has since undergone multiple changes, and for a period the city had multiple official seals. These changes and multiple seals largely resulted from the city's transition to British and, later, American control, as well as from tensions between the mayor and the city's elected council. The current seal was designed in 1915 and most recently modified in 1977. Since then, the design has faced occasional scrutiny. For example, on July 27, 2020, the city's mayor, Bill de Blasio, recommended that a commission study the appropriateness of the seal's design in the wake of the George Floyd protests.
  The city clerk of New York City is the custodian of the city seal.
context_section_description: From its founding until 1654, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam did not have its own seal. Because it was managed by the provincial governor of New Netherland, it used the seal of New Netherland. After incorporation in 1653, which granted New Amsterdam its own government, the city requested an official seal from the Dutch West India Company, which owned and ultimately managed the province of New Netherland. A proposal for a coat of arms of New Amsterdam had been put forward as early as 1630; it featured beavers in the role of supporters, an acknowledgment of the importance of the trade in beaver skins to the growing economy of the province. The beaver was also the prominent element of the seal of New Netherland. However, this design was rejected. The Dutch West India Company instead chose a design that featured the company's insignia on a mantle and a single beaver over a shield emblazoned with a modified version of the arms of Amsterdam. The original full-color rendering of this first official symbol of the city has since been lost, but historians have conjectured that, on the shield, the central pale was black, the three crosses were white, the field was red, and the bands bordering the central pale were either gold or white, in keeping with the heraldic rules of tincture. The draped mantling at the top was likely a tricolor of orange, white, and blue, referencing the flag of the Netherlands in use at the founding of New Amsterdam.
caption: 1654 seal of New Amsterdam
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