The design of the colored seal of the State of South Dakota shall be as follows: An inner circle, whose diameter shall be five–sevenths of the diameter of the outer circle of any seal produced in conformity herewith; within which inner circle shall appear; in the left foreground on the left bank of a river, a rust–colored smelting furnace from which grey smoke spirals upward and adjacent to which on the left are a rust–colored hoist house and mill, and to the left a grey dump; these three structures being set in a yellow field and above and back of a light green grove on the left bank of the river. In the left background is a series of three ranges of hills, the nearer range being a darker green than the said grove, the intermediate range of a blue–green and the higher range of a blue–black coloration.

In the right foreground is a farmer with black hat, red shirt, navy–blue trousers and black boots, holding a black and silver breaking plow, drawn by a matched team of brown horses with a black harness. In the right background and above the horses in a pasture of grey–green, a herd of rust–colored cattle graze in front of a field of yellow–brown corn, part in shock and part in cut rows to the rear and above which are blue and purple hills forming a low background and receding into the distance. Between the right and left foregrounds and backgrounds is a light–blue river merging in the distance into a sky–blue and cloudless sky. Moving upstream on the river is a white steamboat with a single black funnel from which grey smoke spirals upward. Green shrubbery appears on the near bank of the river, in the left foreground and on the right bank of the river near the pasture is a yellow field. The farmer is turning black–brown furrows which reach across the circle and in his foreground is a field of brown–green–yellow.

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Near the upper edge of the inner circle at the top on a golden quarter circle which is one–fifth in width the distance between the innermost and the outermost circles that compose the seal, shall appear in black, the state motto: “Under God the People Rule.” This innermost circle is circumscribed by a golden band one–fourth as wide as the above–described quarter circle, which inner border, shall be circumscribed by a deep blue circle four and one–half times as wide as the above quarter circle, on which in golden letters one–third its width, in height, shall appear at the top the words, “State of South Dakota.” In the lower half of the deep blue circle shall appear in words of equal height “Great” and “Seal” between which shall be the numerals “1889.” Between the above–stated names and on either side shall appear a golden star one–half in size the width of the deep blue circle. Circumscribing this deep blue circle shall be a band of gold of the same width as of the inner golden band.

Outside of this outer golden band shall be a serrated or saw–toothed edge of small triangles whose base shall be of the same width as the above quarter circle.

Source: SL 1961, ch 291, § 1.