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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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.
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.
Lol pixelated pictures for flags before they invented pixels
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!
For New Zealand, I like Hundertwasser’s Koru Flag
I think it looks really cool too!
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.
Nz flag is good I wouldnt change it for any of the shit alternatives.
I’d change the Swiss flag because its square and I want it to be rectangular.
I would change the Australian flag as it infringes on our flag. I’d change it to the ugly green and yellow combo they love with kangaroo on it.
Tricolour flags are to plain and confusing so I’d ban tri colour flags. If you have a tri colour flag you got to put a symbol on it at least.
There are many valid opinions, but these aren’t, I’m sorry to say
Laser kiwi is cool, and the proposals to include more Maori symbolism are great too!
The Swiss flag should stay the same, since all squares are rectangles! Plus you have the Vatican being quite square too
As an Aussie, green and gold is not an ugly combination, it’s one of the greatest!
Tricolours are cool, and they’re not all bad! Estonia’s is probably my favourite (all the Baltics have great flags), but France and the Netherlands were some of the OGs, and Germany is pretty distinct too. Gabon and Sierra Leone have pretty underrated tricolours too.
Laser kiwi is a cool meme flag but a terrible national flag. All the proposed flags we got shown look souless and have no meaning. We already got Maori symbolism on our flag its the southern cross constellation.
I didnt know about the Vatican being square but stretch that out to.
The square Swiss flag works well because of the cross. If it were oblong, it would look unbalanced with the cross in the middle.
And the Swiss flag can be easily represented with a 5x5 grid of pixels, which is pretty cool!
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
You’d take Scotland out, but leave Northern Ireland?
I voted for independence in that referendum.
murican flag should be the “pedobär”
Wait, that’s an actual flag? What the heck people are weird man
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.
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
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.
There’s a lot of flags that annoy me and I would like to see changed, but I think these are the ones that I would change without a second thought:
Russia
Current: I find their current flag to be offensive to the eyes. The bright blue and red clash with each other, and the white bar at the top makes it looks like it's upside down. It gives off a very uncomfortable and depressing vibe.
Suggestion: I would change it to the old black, yellow, and white flag that Imperial Russia used. I think it's a very beautiful and elegant flag with a unique color combination that harmonizes well together.
Iran
Current: It takes the classical Iranian tricolors and gives them these disgusting squiggles to the green and red blocks that are supposed to be "Allahu Akbar" on repeat in the Kufic script. They also add this eyesore of an islamic emblem in the middle that supposed to be a bunch of swords and a crescent spelling out "allah" in Arabic. I don't know a single Iranian who likes this flag.
Suggestion: I would change it to the old lion and sun flag. Not only does it look badass, but this flag actually carries the history of Iran. It's the historical flag, it's the flag that people identify with, and it's a flag that encompasses all Iranians, not just the muslims (which are barely a majority in the country).
Iraq
Current: The flag of my home country is just stupid. It's a tricolor used by previous Iraqi flags with 3 stars in the middle. Saddam Hussein later added the words "Allahu Akbar" in Arabic between the stars. The new Iraqi government ran with it, but then later decided to remove the Saddam Hussein elements by removing the stars he didn't add and keep the "Allahu Akbar that he did add". It pissed off a lot of people because it's a deceitful attempt by islamists to pretend that Iraq is an islamic state.
Suggestion: Go back to the Qasim flag. This was a flag that was used in Iraq after the revolution to overthrow the monarchy. It used the pan-arab tricolors to represent the Arabs, a yellow circle that represented the Kurdish sun, and a red star that symbolized the star of Ishtar which represented the Assyrians in the country and the country's rich history. It's simply a superior flag, though I would do away with the pan Arab colors in favor of something that symbolizes Iraq.
China
Current: I will forever hold the opinion that communist flags are hideous. China is an ancient civilization that has a rich history and culture, and you're telling that they can't find anything to symbolize their nation outside of a foreign influenced communist flag? Bullshit.
Suggestion: Bring back the Qing dynasty flag. It's iconic, it's indigenous, and it represents China's deep heritage way better than a bland red flag with stars. Besides, it has a cool dragon on it, how can anybody hate that?
Belarus
Current: Is this not one of the ugliest flags in the world? The colors clash with each other, the blocks are not balanced, and the pattern on the side is just repulsive. Not only that but this flag is a stripped down version of the Soviet Imposed flag, which most Belarussians view as a symbol of Russian imperialism. To make matters worse the current flag was designed and imposed by Lukashenko, the brutal dictator of Belarus, in 1995. Belarussians view this gross flag as symbol of Lukashenko's tyranny and an extension of Russia's imperialism.
Suggestion: It's time to replace the current atrocity with the real flag of Belarus. Belarus literally means 'White Rus' as in the historical term for the ancient Slavic Rus who were never conquered by the Tartars, and this flag has a lot of white to represent that freedom and red for the sacrificing that it took to defend it. I specifically like the variation that has the coat of arms of Lithuania on it since a good portion of the historical Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth encompassed modern Belarus.
Some feedback:
As for Russia, I think some elements of the imperial flag should be used, but not its entirety, since it represents the monarchy who historically weren’t all too kind to their people for most of their reign. Perhaps a new flag, with a France-like vertical tricolour, a mixture of the imperial colours (yellow, maybe black) and the modern colours (red, maybe blue) could be formed to represent remembering Russia’s long past while also showing that they are stepping forward into the future.
I do think bringing the lion and sun flag would be great! It’s a lion holding a blade with the sun rising from its back, how cool is that? The image hasn’t loaded yet, but I do need to note that the flag should be the one without the crown, as that represents the authoritarian Shah. The crownless flag was actually adopted when the Shah was deposed for a democracy, but then the CIA had to muck everything up and depose Mossadegh to restore the U.S.-friendly Shah, and later you had the 1979 Islamic revolution and all that.
The Qasim flag does look really cool! No qualms about that one, I think it’s simply better than the current flag.
As for the Chinese flag, I do think that the current flag is a little boring, but it’s quite recognisable. However (speaking as somebody with Chinese ancestry), red is a lucky colour in Chinese culture, although the PRC officially defines the red on the flag to symbolise the communist struggle. I think a majorly red flag would be suitable for China, and additionally, the Qing flag represents the dynasty ruled by the Manchus rather than the majority Han Chinese, so I’m sure some people (particularly the older folk) would be upset by that. I personally enjoy the “five peoples” flag of the Beiyang republic, with five stripes representing the five major people groups of China, but since that specific iteration of China was plagued by corruption and all that, it’s not a popular option.
In my opinion, I think a majorly red flag would be good, but maybe not the central star with the four stars surrounding it (it represents the people surrounding the party). Personally, I would go for a yellow/gold Chinese dragon in the centre going around in a circle (symbolising how long China has existed, the “foreverness” of Chinese identity), a star in the middle if communism sticks around, and maybe some lions on either side as well, since those are also very important in China? Actually, maybe it could be lions on one side (representing the spirit of the Chinese people) and a flower / maybe some leaves / another plant (representing the kind and respectful culture of the Chinese people). I think that would be neat!
In the case of Belarus, I think the white red white would look pretty neat! Recognisable and has some historical background to it. I feel it’s a little bland though, maybe adding a third colour or some of the patterns would do it good?
IIRC history of the current Russian flag is that it was a naval flag derived from the Dutch by… Rearranging the stripes. Yeah, so original.
Also, many people confuse the color stripe order anyway. The cynical way to remember it is “blood under water”.
I suppose I should not ask your opinion on color choices for Bangladesh.
Or the colour choices for Morocco…
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.
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.
