The emblems consist of a red disc featuring a Caucasian leopard with seven white mountains in the background.

[1][2] The blazon is "disc gules, a leopard passant or spotted sable on a ground or with a background of seven mountains argent."

Around the shield, the name of the country is written in Ossetian (Республикӕ Хуссар Ирыстон) above and in Russian (Республика Южная Осетия) below.

As an autonomous oblast, it didn't have its own coat of arms, instead the Emblem of the Georgian SSR was used for official purposes.

Prior to the adoption of the current coat of arms in 1995, Lyudvig Chibirov used a design featuring an eagle embazoned with a Triskelion in the South Ossetian national colors, with a Wasamonga cup, a pole-axe, an oak branch, hop and ears of wheat, the gifts God gave to Narts in Assianism tradition.