Many flags around the world are iconic, think the ones of France, Canada, South Africa, the Nordics, etc.
However, there are some that aren’t as good, like the Australian and New Zealand flags, both of which still retain the union jack with little Indigenous symbolism. Speaking as an Australian myself, our flag isn’t all that great! The Southern Cross is cool, but there is no hint of green/gold, and the union jack just looks tacked on. There are also many flags that look good, but the symbolism represents ideas that you’re against. Think Iran’s flag that draws heavily from their sect of Islam and the theocracy, or the PRC’s flag having the smaller stars representing the people surrounding the larger star representing the one party state. There’s also some that are okay, but a bit boring and hard of distinguish from the rest, and an additional element would make it stand out more.
And purple should be on more flags! Republican Spain during the 1930s had some purple, but they lost the civil war and the flag was replaced.
If you could change the national flags of the world, what would be your flag proposals?
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Australia’s official flag is ho-hum, but you already have an incredible flag you could use instead
Way better! Finally got rid of that union jack. This is how it should be.
A lot of African countries- green red yellow and a star maybe? Just not a lot of variety and no real character.
Tricolors for others are fine but I wonder what else they could do, ie. Netherlands, etc etc.
Somalia, easily.
Union Jack countries could differentiate more.
Lot of south American countries are similar too… Maybe a bit more variety there as well.
I think that the Australian and New Zealand ones are okay from a technical standpoint.
We have a lot of really bad state flags in the US. A lot of them originally involved slapping the state seal (not optimized for flag use, usually more-detailed) on usually some shade of blue.
That being said, a bunch of them have been revised. Utah (“The Beehive State”) did a 2024 revision, which I think is a pretty strong improvement (and follows the “originally just the state-seal-on-blue” pattern):
to
And honestly, I think that most of those warrant a change more than most national flags.
However, if I were going to make changes to national flags…hmm. Well, there are a whole bunch of countries that have extremely similar flags. Nobody wants to back down on their flag, but honestly, the present state of affairs just kind of sucks from a functional standpoint, seeing as the purpose of flags is to let one easily identify something as being associated with a country. It’d be nice if they’d flip a coin or something and have one of the countries pick something more-distinctive.
One of the most-egregious is the flag of Chad:
And the flag of Romania:
There are a bunch more that look very similar at a distance or at small sizes or if one is being flown upside-down. I won’t list them all here, but it’d be awesome if those would get sorted out.
Also, while the tricolor, as with the above flags, is associated with republicanism, and thus a lot of countries use it, and technically, it’s nice (simple, easy to identify, no text), there are similar alternatives that would help make flags a lot more distinguishable. Take the flag of Czechia, for example:
Still three colors, but looks pretty different from most other national flags. You don’t get into the “tricolor with very similar colors” problem.
Bravo on all the effort in that. Utah’s updated flag looks great. Another example of crazy close flags is Poland and Monaco along with like 5 other countries.
I really like the flag of Greenland.
All of the flags that are just stripes. It’s too easy to get them mixed up with similar-looking striped flags, especially if there are others with the same colors. Obviously people from that country will know which flag they’re looking at, but people from other countries can easily get confused. It kind of detracts from the power of the flag if other people don’t know what it represents or have to search it up every time they see it.
Flags should be immediately distinctive and memorable, IMO. Like, I love how Canada’s flag has a Maple leaf. No one else has a maple leaf, so people can remember that one.
I feel like some tricolours should get a pass. France and the Netherlands are the OGs, but many others are great too! Estonia’s is my favourite colour combination, but Germany, Lithuania, Romania, and Bulgaria are pretty recognisable too. Sierra Leone and Gabon have pretty underrated tricolours too. There are some that are too similar to others, like those of Russia (very similar to the Dutch), Chad (nearly identical to Romania), and Italy (pretty close to France, in my opinion Mexico did the colour combo better with the cool eagle)
As for the bicolours, you have the triage of Poland, Monaco, and Indonesia who are really similar. Poland should add their eagle back to the flag, birds are cool and it’s deeply tied to their history, and Indonesia needs to spice their flag up to be more interesting. Monaco should probably be annexed into France, maybe they could be an autonomous province or something. Then you have Ukraine, who have a pretty neat flag that is easily recognisable, but yes it is a little boring.
Austria and Latvia are quite similar to each other too, the latter has a thinner strip that’s more unique, but I feel like both could be improved.
I’d take out the 13 stripes from the US flag and just use the naval jack.
In general I think any flag that is using seals, crests, or text should probably have a redesign, not necessarily to remove the icons, but to simplify them. (US state flags are the worst offenders here.)
Belize has a flag that looks like it could be the flag of a midwestern state.
The flag of Cyprus is just an outline of the island which, I feel, relies too much on cartography for its symbol. What if you’d never seen a map?
I feel like if the U.S. redesigned their flag, they should definitely put an eagle on it. Birds are cool and should be on more flags!
I’d like to see Ireland use the green field with harp flag. I get the symbolism of the tricolor but it’d be nice to move past the Catholics vs Protestants and leave religion out of it. Maybe, if re-unification happens.
It’s not a national flag but the Washington State flag is horrid.
Ugly as hell, looks even worse at a distance, can’t be read from a distance, terrible shade of green, tells you nothing about our gorgeous state other than why it’s called Washington like that wasn’t obvious. It’s so hard to see at a distance it took me like 20 years of living here to realize it was a portrait, I always just thought it was ugly and never bothered to actually look at it. One of the worst flags in the country for one of the best states.
Needed to bold state, 'cause otherwise people would think it’s George Washington’s personal flag.
Also, CGP Grey has entered the chat.
Lol pixelated pictures for flags before they invented pixels
Nepal. I’m all for non-rectangular flags, but couldn’t they have chosen a different aspect ratio than
Why though? What is the significance of this ratio?
Edit: Looked it up and it actually makes sense. The flag is not a rectangle.
When constructed according to the stated geometric construction law, the ratio of the height of the flag to the longest width is an irrational number. This is common for the hypotenuse of triangles.
Lazer Kiwi or nothing!
The Union Jack itself only represents 3 of the 4 countries in the UK. And since the missing one, Wales, has a dragon on their flag, it seems like an easy fix that will make the country as a whole cooler
It is always a little strange for me to see the flag of Mozambique. I don’t really know anything about the country, but the flag with its AK47 in there has the vibe of a terrorist organization.
As someone that was born in Australia but doesn’t love identifying as one I think Harold Thomas got it absolutely bang on! The Australian Indigenous flag should be the National Australian flag. Black night sky, big yellow sun, and iron rich red dirt. The current Australian flag fkn sucks.
Just note that specific flag is that of the Australian Aborigines and I believe does not include the Torres Strait Islanders, so it does not encompass the entirety of the Australian Indigenous peoples.
Still a very cool flag though, I think having a mix of symbolism from it as well as other elements would be good to create a truly Aussie flag! Some green and gold in there maybe, possibly a boomerang (featured in many flag proposals and generally looks super cool), and the red sand would be an interesting combination.
I’m Australian and our flag is awesome, if I had to change it i would replace the union jack with the aboriginal flag and put new Zealand down by the side of the southern Cross
For New Zealand, I like Hundertwasser’s Koru Flag
I think it looks really cool too!
great post
Let’s make a tierlist sbout how urgent it is for them to change:
S:
- Poland’s flag is supposedly derived from a white bird against a setting sun. To me it would make sense to include that imagery on the flag, or a historical coat of arms.
- I think places like Syria, Egypt, Libya, Iraq need to agree on a different colour scheme for themselves. At the moment they’re confusingly similar
- Russia’s current flsg i bslieve it’s literslly just copying the french and netherlands colours because Peter the Great was so inspired by them.
The old fashioned, imperial russian flag was beautiful:
But even better is with a crest:
Which can be simplified for a stylish modern design (as i bekieve all credts should be when possible)
Alternatively, a bear could look good on their flag:
A:
- Israel (changing flag after a hopeful regime change would be prudent because it’s like a symbol of genocide now.)
B:
- Luxembourg (too similar to Netherlands),
- China (i find china’s flag really dull even if it is iconic. They surely want to invoke their historical longevity rather than just Communism. Stars represent the key chinese regions, which seems like a good feature - the red does not.)
F:
- I don’t think i’d change it, but Canada seems as/more close to britain than Australia so it makes more sense to give a little Union Jack in the top left corner.
Petition for you to add flag emoji to each country mention, e.g. “🇵🇱 Poland”, for those of us (me!) who are vexillologically challenged and don’t remember any flags.
Edit: an attempt, based on gboard’s emoji search functionality and with zero verification:
great post
Let’s make a tierlist sbout how urgent it is for them to change:
S:
- 🇵🇱Poland’s flag is supposedly derived from a white bird against a setting sun. To me it would make sense to include that imagery on the flag, or a historical coat of arms.
- I think places like 🇸🇾Syria, 🇪🇬Egypt, 🇱🇾Libya, 🇮🇶Iraq need to agree on a different colour scheme for themselves. At the moment they’re confusingly similar
A:
- 🇮🇱Israel (changing flag after a hopeful regime change would be prudent because it’s like a symbol of genocide now.)
B:
- 🇱🇺Luxembourg (too similar to 🇳🇱Netherlands),
- 🇨🇳China (i find china’s flag really dull even if it is iconic. They surely want to invoke their historical longevity rather than just Communism. Stars represent the key chinese regions, which seems like a good feature - the red does not.)
F:
- I don’t think i’d change it, but 🇨🇦Canada seems as/more close to britain than 🇦🇺Australia so it makes more sense to give a little 🇬🇧Union Jack in the top left corner.
A correction on the PRC’s flag: the 4 smaller stars each represent one of the classes in New Democracy:
- The Proletariat
- The Peasantry
- The Petite Bourgeoisie
- The National Bourgeoisie
The fifth, largest star, is for the CPC itself, which unites and guides the 4 classes, itself dominated by the proletariat.
The old, five stripes flag is the one that represented the 5 major ethnic groups of China, which is often confused as the reasoning for China’s current 5 stars.
@FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world I believe this reply ^ was intended for you
Oof, ty.
That makes sense! Thank you
No problem!
Note: some flags (like 🇸🇾Syria) were changed recently enough that the emoji could look different depending on your operating system and which app or browser you’re using for Lemmy. Gboard shows me the new flag (green on top, 3 red stars), but Voyager/Android 16 shows the old flag (red on top, 2 green stars). It’s unavoidable when Unicode is used to encode things that can change, like flags. But it’s better than nothing!
The only way around it is to embed pictures of flags, but that takes more effort. And data.
Syria flag apparently changed without me knowing. I will sleep well tonight. All it took was deposing Bashar Al Assad
Happy to accidentally be of service :)
Canada seems as/more close to britain than Australia so it makes more sense to give a little Union Jack in the top left corner.
What is this blasphemy
Seriously, our flag is like the best thing Canada has going for it.
Although as much as I loathe little corner Union Jacks on flags, I have to admit I’d probably get a kick from the reaction of the entire province of Québec if it were to happen.
Israel (changing flag after a hopeful regime change would be prudent because it’s like a symbol of genocide now.)
I actually like Israel’s flag. It’s simple, it’s bright, and it’s instantly recognizable. It’s unique and doesn’t follow a trend, it’s doesn’t have clashing colors, and the symbolism is neither absent or overloaded. It’s a really good flag. I think it’s the second best one in the Middle East after Lebanon’s flag. I think they should keep it.
This is the most common Polish flag I’ve seen, with the Eagle:
Pretty good IMO
😍
Great points! I think Russia should change their flag close to the imperial one! Looks awesome and quite individual.
A reply for one that hits too close to home… Israel’s flag, it was our flag long before and I don’t think it necessarily represents the atrocities of the past few years. I definitely hope for (and try to work towards) a “regime change”, by which I mean more of a regime resuscitation as it is kind of a democracy on its death bed, which has always been flawed to some capacity but isn’t unsalvageable. I think. (Honestly though, what do I know about regime change…)
Getting sidetracked, but back to the flag. Israel has flown this flag basically since its first independence, and while it never actually was at peace (welcome to the middle east…), there have been long periods where it actively sought peace and even made great concessions to try to achieve it. It seems wrong to disregard that history, and only associate the flag with what the state has done in recent years. The flag doesn’t need to change for the state’s policy to change. If it did, then it would already have been changed.
As a point of comparison, the flags used by the British Empire are not so tainted by the atrocities of imperialism that they can’t be used today. England has changed, but its flag doesn’t have to. It carries its history, the good and the bad.
That’s fair enough. I don’t see the star of David going out of fashion as a symbol anyway. Point about England is good.
