Find a flag

Flags are rarely designed from scratch. Most belong to a family of designs that share a history, and recognising the family is often the fastest way to the country.

Nordic crosses

Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland all fly an off-centre cross extending to the edges. The Danish flag, the Dannebrog, is the model for the others and is often described as the oldest national flag in continuous use. The cross sits towards the flagpole so that it looks centred when the flag hangs and flutters.

Pan-African colours

Green, yellow and red come from the flag of Ethiopia, which was never colonised apart from a brief Italian occupation and became a symbol of independence for the rest of Africa. Ghana, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Cameroon and many others use them. A second Pan-African set, red, black and green, comes from the flag adopted by Marcus Garvey’s movement in 1920 and appears on the flags of Kenya and Malawi among others.

Pan-Arab colours

Red, white, green and black trace back to the flag of the Arab Revolt during the First World War. Jordan, Palestine, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and others use the set in different arrangements, which is why the filters for those four colours return a cluster of Middle Eastern and North African flags.

Pan-Slavic colours

White, blue and red in horizontal stripes appear on the flags of Russia, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia, among others, following a nineteenth-century movement that saw them as a shared Slavic palette.

The Union Jack in the corner

Australia, New Zealand, Tuvalu and Fiji still carry the British flag in the canton, the upper corner nearest the flagpole, as do many British overseas territories such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and the Falkland Islands. Spotting it narrows the search to a short list straight away.

French-style tricolours

Three vertical stripes became a symbol of republics after the French Revolution. Italy, Ireland, Belgium, Romania, Chad, Mali, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire all fly vertical tricolours, which is why “tricolour” is one of the least specific clues on its own.

The study of flags, vexillology, has a small vocabulary that makes flags much easier to describe, search for and remember.

• Hoist and fly. The hoist is the edge nearest the flagpole; the fly is the far edge. “A red triangle at the hoist” describes the flags of Cuba, the Czech Republic and the Philippines, among others.
• Field. The background colour of the flag.
• Canton. The upper corner at the hoist, where the Union Jack sits on Australia’s flag and the stars sit on the flag of the United States.
• Charge. Any symbol placed on the field: a star, a crescent, a coat of arms.
• Ratio. Height to length. Most flags are 2:3 or 1:2, but there are outliers: Switzerland and Vatican City fly square flags, Qatar’s is unusually long at 11:28, and Nepal’s is not a rectangle at all but two stacked pennants.

Describing a flag in these terms, for example “blue field, white Nordic cross, red border on the cross”, is also the most reliable way to search for it anywhere else.

This tool covers the flags of countries and territories. A surprising share of the flags people try to identify are something else, and no combination of filters will find them. Before giving up, consider whether it might be one of these.

• A state, province or region. US states, Canadian provinces, German Länder, Spanish autonomous communities and Brazilian states all have their own flags, and many are flown more often locally than the national flag. Scotland’s white saltire on blue and Wales’s red dragon are common examples in the United Kingdom.
• An international organisation. The European Union’s circle of twelve gold stars on blue is often mistaken for a country’s flag. The United Nations, the Olympic movement, NATO and the African Union have flags too.
• A city. Many cities have distinctive flags; Amsterdam’s three white crosses on a black stripe and Chicago’s four red stars are well known.
• A maritime ensign or a signal flag. Ships often fly an ensign that differs from the national flag, and the international code of signal flags uses coloured squares and pennants to spell out letters.
• A cause or a community. Pride flags, indigenous flags such as the Aboriginal flag in Australia, and historical or regional flags flown at events.

If you saw the flag at a sports event, check the team. Football alone has separate teams for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, each with its own flag, while the Olympics has athletes competing under flags of their own.

Flag customs vary from country to country, and some are set out in law, but a handful are widely shared.

• Half-mast signals mourning. The flag is raised to the top first, then lowered to the half-way position, and raised to the top again before it is taken down.
• Upside down is a traditional signal of distress on some flags, such as the flag of the United States. On many symmetrical flags it makes no visible difference, but on others, such as Poland’s or Indonesia’s, it produces a different country’s flag.
• Equal height applies when national flags fly together: none should be higher or larger than the others, a convention followed at the United Nations and at international sporting events.
• Hanging vertically is not as simple as turning the flag. Many countries specify how their flag should be rotated so that the canton or emblem ends up in the right corner.

If you are flying or displaying another country’s flag, for an event or a classroom display, check that country’s own guidance. Embassies usually publish it.

It is easy to imagine national flags as ancient. A few are, but most of the flags in this tool date from the twentieth century, and many from the wave of independence across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific between the 1950s and the 1980s. New states needed new flags quickly, and many were chosen through public competitions or designed by a small committee in the months before independence day.

That history explains a lot about how flags look. Countries that won independence together or shared a political movement tended to share colours, which is where the Pan-African and Pan-Arab palettes come from. Former British colonies that kept close ties often kept the Union Jack. Countries breaking from an empire often chose the opposite: colours or symbols with no link to the old ruler at all.

Flags that changed recently

Flags still change, which is another reason a remembered flag may not match. A few examples from this century: Rwanda adopted a new flag in 2001, replacing one associated with the 1994 genocide. Myanmar introduced a new flag in 2010. Libya returned in 2011 to the flag it used before 1969, replacing a plain green flag. Mauritania added red stripes to the top and bottom of its flag in 2017.

The flags in this tool are the current ones. If you are working from an older atlas, a stamp or a photo from decades ago, the flag you remember may simply have been retired.