mapagames
The Flag Atlas

Explore the world’s flags

All 195 flags on one globe: the 193 UN members, plus Vatican City and Palestine. They’re sorted by colour, not by place. Spin it, pick a flag, and see what it’s made of.

Drag to spin. Use the arrow keys to move between flags, and Enter to open one.

Part 01

Colour

Which colours flags use, how much of each, who shares them, and what they look like blended together.

The palette

Four out of five flags have red

Here, a flag’s main colours are the ones that cover at least 1% of it. Tiny details don’t count.

A flag with three main colours is counted three times, so the bars add up to more than the number of flags.

The 40 flags without red

Look closely, though: 5 of them hide a little red or maroon in their details. They are Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Vatican.

Beyond the big six

The rarer colours, counted at any size, even inside an emblem.

  • Purple

    2 flags

    Dominica’s parrot, and one ring of Nicaragua’s rainbow.

  • Pink

    2 flags

    Spain’s lion of León, and the cactus fruit on Mexico’s.

  • Grey and silver

    9 flags

    Malta’s cross, the Vatican’s silver key, Uganda’s crane.

  • Brown

    15 flags

    Only ever in an emblem, never a stripe.

  • Maroon

    5 flags · 2 with lots of it

    Large on Qatar and Sri Lanka; elsewhere, just a speck.

  • Orange

    16 flags · 9 with lots of it

    A stripe on India, Ireland and Niger; the whole island on Cyprus.

  • Sky blue and turquoise

    15 flags · 10 with lots of it

    Nearly the whole flag of Kazakhstan and Saint Lucia.

Record holders

Micronesia is 98% blue

For each colour, the five flags that use the most of it.

  • Most red

    1. China: 97%
    2. Morocco: 97%
    3. Turkey: 94%
    4. Vietnam: 93%
    5. Kyrgyzstan: 90%

  • Most gold

    1. Brunei: 54%
    2. Sri Lanka: 54%
    3. Vatican: 52%
    4. Colombia: 50%
    5. Ukraine: 50%

  • Most green

    1. Saudi Arabia: 94%
    2. Turkmenistan: 83%
    3. Bangladesh: 79%
    4. Zambia: 74%
    5. Brazil: 69%

  • Most blue

    1. Micronesia: 98%
    2. Somalia: 96%
    3. Kazakhstan: 90%
    4. Nauru: 89%
    5. Saint Lucia: 86%

  • Most black

    1. Libya: 49%
    2. Papua New Guinea: 48%
    3. Angola: 47%
    4. Egypt: 33%
    5. Estonia: 33%

    No flag is even half black. Libya comes closest.

  • Most white

    1. Cyprus: 89%
    2. Japan: 81%
    3. South Korea: 78%
    4. Israel: 64%
    5. Georgia: 64%

How many colours

195 flags, only 41 colour combinations

80 of 195 flags use exactly three main colours, more than any other number. Each bubble is one combination, sized by how many flags use it.

Only main colours count here, so small details like Samoa’s white stars or the fine parts of a coat of arms are left out.

colour combinations
41
shared by two or more flags
31
used by one flag only
10
of 195 flags share theirs with another flag
185

Most common

Pick a bubble to see its flags.

Bigger bubble, more flags

Lines join combinations one colour apart

Shades count as one colour: navy and sky blue are both blue.

Colour clubs

Colours with a past

Some flags share their colours on purpose.

  • Pan-African20

    Red, gold and green, after Ethiopia’s flag.

  • Pan-Arab7

    Black, white, green and red, from the Arab Revolt of 1916.

  • Pan-Slavic6

    White, blue and red, and no other colour.

  • Nordic cross5

    A cross shifted toward the flagpole, after Denmark’s.

Every continent

Oceania is half blue

Blend each region’s flags into one bar, and each region leans toward its own colour.

  • Africa

    54 flags

    1.8× the world average of green

  • The Americas

    35 flags

    1.4× the world average of blue

  • Asia

    48 flags

    1.4× the world average of white

  • Europe

    44 flags

    1.3× the world average of white

  • Oceania

    14 flags

    2.6× the world average of blue

From afar

Each flag as one colour

Squint, and each flag melts into a single colour. Point at a swatch to see whose it is.

All of them, blended

#ba9891

What you’d get by blending every flag together, all at the same size.

Where the paint goes

All the colour on every flag, added up. Emblem details make up the last 1%.

Your turn

Flag Mixer

Seen from far away, what colour does this flag melt into? Pick your guess, then reveal.

Setting up…

Part 02

Design and geometry

How flags are built: their stripes, their symbols, their shapes, and three flags taken apart piece by piece.

Same recipe

More than half are stripes

109 of 195 flags are simple bands of colour, and horizontal bands beat vertical ones more than two to one.

77Horizontal
32Vertical
86Everything else

Every layout used by four or more flags, drawn without emblems: that covers 97 of the 109 striped flags. The other 12 are rarer, like the 13 stripes of the United States.

Three stripes35

Three columns16

Sandwich13

Two stripes11

Two columns8

Centre column7

Five stripes, mirrored7

Outlines only

Take the colour away

Draw only the lines where one colour meets another, and flags you’d never confuse turn out to share a design.

The same corner over stripes, until you count them: nine for Greece and Uruguay, eleven for Liberia, thirteen for the United States, fourteen for Malaysia.

Every line is a real edge between two colours, traced from the flag’s own artwork. Fine shading inside emblems is rounded to the nearest colour.

What’s on them

259 stars on 64 flags

Look past the stripes and the same few symbols keep coming back.

Shapes, by colour

  • 259 stars

    on 64 flags

    • 161
    • 59
    • 16
    • 12
    • 7
    • 4

    50 of them are on a single flag: United States.

  • 15 crescents

    • 10
    • 3
    • 2

    All but 3 come with a star.

  • 12 suns

    • 10
    • 1
    • 1

    Nearly all gold; Malawi’s rises red.

  • 15 circles

    • 6
    • 5
    • 3
    • 1

    Brazil’s is the night sky over Rio.

  • 13 crosses

    • 5
    • 4
    • 2
    • 2

    Five are Nordic crosses.

  • 24 triangles

    • 9
    • 5
    • 3
    • 3
    • 2
    • 2

Pictures

  • 15 birds

    Eight of them eagles.

  • 27 coats of arms

    23 of the 27 fly in the Americas or Europe.

  • 12 inscriptions

    In Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin.

  • 11 weapons

    Guns on four: Guatemala, Bolivia, Haiti, Mozambique.

Shapes

Nobody agrees on a rectangle

Every height-to-width ratio in use, most common first. 2:3 is far ahead, and 16 ratios are used by just one flag.

  1. 2:386 flags
  2. 1:254 flags
  3. 3:518 flags
  4. 5:85 flags
  5. 3:44 flags
  6. 10:194 flags
  7. 1:12 flags
  8. 8:112 flags
  9. 7:102 flags
  10. 4:72 flags

One flag each

  1. 11:9Nepal
  2. 13:15Belgium
  3. 6:7Niger
  4. 4:5Monaco
  5. 19:25Denmark
  6. 18:25Iceland
  7. 5:7Albania
  8. 15:22Bolivia
  9. 16:25Cambodia
  10. 7:11Estonia
  11. 13:21Togo
  12. 11:18Finland
  13. 10:17Cabo Verde
  14. 13:23El Salvador
  15. 11:20Paraguay
  16. 11:28Qatar

Investigation

Nepal: a flag drawn by law

Nepal’s constitution doesn’t show a picture of the flag. It gives step-by-step instructions to draw it, starting from a single line. Follow along.

11⅓11

  1. Two pennants, one on top of the other. Everything is measured from the bottom edge. The left edge is a third longer. The sloping edge of the lower pennant and the bottom of the upper one are exactly as long as the bottom edge.

Investigation

What’s at the heart of Dominica’s flag?

Build it up from the background, one layer at a time, and find out.

  1. A green background for the forests, crossed by stripes of yellow, black and white. Together they make a cross, for the Trinity.

    • Yellow: sunshine, citrus and bananas, and the Carib and Arawak peoples
    • Black: the rich black soil, and African heritage
    • White: clear rivers and waterfalls, and pure aspiration

Investigation

Brazil: a map of the sky

Its 27 stars show the real sky over Rio de Janeiro at 8:30 a.m. on 15 November 1889, the day Brazil became a republic. Each star stands for a state, or the Federal District.

The flag moves some stars a little; Sky shows where they really were.

27 stars in 9 constellations. Open one here, or tap a star on the map.

Part 03

Oddities and look-alikes

Flags unlike any other, flags that fool you, and two games to test your eye.

Records and oddities

Only one of each

  • Not a rectangle

    Nepal, the only flag with more than four sides.

  • The longest

    Qatar: 28 wide for every 11 high.

  • The golden ratio

    Togo’s designer used it, though sources disagree on the official size.

  • Square

    Switzerland and Vatican City.

  • The oldest

    Denmark’s, in use since 1219, legend says.

  • Upside down for war

    The Philippines flies its flag red side up in wartime, as shown here.

  • No red, white or blue

    Jamaica: black, green and gold.

  • Two sides

    Paraguay’s flag has a different seal on the back.

  • A map

    The island of Cyprus, in copper.

  • People

    Two woodcutters, on Belize’s coat of arms.

  • A dragon

    Druk, Bhutan’s thunder dragon.

  • An AK-47

    Mozambique’s, crossed with a hoe.

  • A hat

    Lesotho’s mokorotlo, a straw hat.

Fake friends

Not who you think

Look-alikes come in groups. Put them side by side and the differences jump out.

    • Egypt
    • Yemen
    • Iraq

    Yemen has no emblem.

    • Chad
    • Romania
    • Moldova
    • Tunisia
    • Turkey
    • Vietnam
    • China
    • Côte d'Ivoire
    • Ireland

    The same design, mirrored left to right. Proportions 1:2 instead of 2:3.

    • El Salvador
    • Honduras

    Honduras adds navy.

    • Jordan
    • United Arab Emirates
    • Palestine

    The same design, flipped top to bottom.

    • Monaco
    • Poland
    • Singapore
    • Indonesia

    The same design, flipped top to bottom. Proportions 5:8 instead of 4:5.

    • Guinea
    • Mali
    • Senegal

    The same design, mirrored left to right.

    • Liberia
    • United States

    13 bands instead of 11.

    • Australia
    • New Zealand
    • Japan
    • South Korea
    • Cyprus

    South Korea adds black and blue.

    • Fiji
    • Tuvalu

    Tuvalu adds blue.

Your turn

Flag Twins

Two of these five are near twins. Find the pair.

Setting up…

Your turn

Odd Flag Out

Three of these share something. Which one doesn’t?

Setting up…

Part 04

Every flag

All of them in one place, and how the Atlas measures them.

All of them

195 flags by colour

Each flag sits under its biggest colour, from the flag with the most of it to the one with the least.

Reds6997% to 25%

Golds1854% to 22%

Greens3794% to 25%

Blues4298% to 22%

Blacks749% to 30%

Whites2289% to 32%

How it’s measured

Each flag is drawn from its artwork and measured pixel by pixel: which colours it uses and how much of each, the colour it blends into, its layout and its shape. Shades are sorted into six colour families by how they look. Every group on this page comes from these measurements, so a flag in a colour club uses those colours, but that says nothing about its history.

Contains capitals and regions from world-countries by Mohammed Le Doze, under the Open Database License.

Play Flags

Know them by sight? See a flag, find its country.

Play Flags