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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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’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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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!
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.
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
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
Can I say I’d change them all by getting rid of the concept altogether?
Shall we do away with name too? All identity?
I’d be ok with just getting rid of nationalism… Nothing wrong with identity, but nationalism fosters an us vs them mentality that fucks over people in most of the world.
I don’t think that’s going away whether or not you foster it. Tribalism seems to be baked into our DNA. You can get rid of nationalism nominally, but it’ll pop up with sports teams or brand loyalty or racism or whatever. But Us vs. Them is too deeply ingrained to fix by abolishing one basis vector on l upon which it expresses itself.
True, but those other forms aren’t tied to wars and economic disparity in the same way, so kicking nationalism to the kerb would still be a win.
Individual identity is good. National identity is bad.
What is a nation, but for a flag, a name, and some imaginary lines in the dirt to fight wars over?
This is a bad take. Extreme individualism is not a good thing.
Having individual identity in of itself is not an inherently bad thing, but neither is collective identity. People are all unique, and so it makes sense that each person will have an individualistic identity that’s true to them. However, we are also social creatures and we need others to survive. Being parts of groups is how we evolved to become the species that we are today. People need to have both collective and individual identities to thrive.
National identity is just another form of collective identity. You identify with your family, with your coworkers, your friends, the residents of your community, and so on. National identity is you identifying with the people of your society. There’s nothing wrong with that.
National identity is just another form of collective identity.
No, not quite. National identity takes a spectrum of collective identity and then divides it into borders, creating distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’. But, ultimately, we are all one people.
National identity tries to ignore the blurred lines between different collective identities. It tries to impose a sharp boundary between one identity and another, where no such boundary truly exists – because people are always intermixing (when they’re not prevented from doing so by force) and even interbreeding.
Take the example of a child born to two parents from different national identities – which national identity does the child inherit? With the sharp distinctions drawn by ‘nations’, the child can’t truly be part of both – they have to be raised in and become a part of one or the other, with one taking precedence over the other. With actual collective identities, though, the child could easily be part of both collective identities, because neither one seeks to exclude the other. (For every distinction drawn about what a national identity is, you also make a distinction about what it is not, shutting off possibilities of mixing and mingling.)
But even without considering intermarriage and heritage, cultures always mix to some degree wherever they meet. People on one side adopt some of the practices, culture, and identity from people on the other side. Every meeting of two collective identities always results in a blurred line sooner or later. But nationalism is a dogmatic oversimplification that insists upon discrete ‘nations’ that don’t intermingle and intermix at the edges. And it mostly only functions as a tool to facilitate tribalism.
I disagree with this analysis because I frankly don’t think it’s even accurate.
I think we need to start by acknowledging a simple reality, which is that all identities exist to include and exclude. That’s what an identity is, it’s a set of identifiers that makes something distinct to the things its compared to. So all identities can be twisted and framed as “us vs them”, but I think that’s a mischaracterization of the concept.
We also need to acknowledge that we are inherently tribalistic beings by our very nature. We are social creatures that have evolved to survive in small groups. The well being of our groups were essential to our survival, and therefore we have developed a strong sense of belonging to the groups we had ties with and we were wary of groups that weren’t because they could be hostile and could threaten the well being of the group we were in. We would like to think that we have evolved, but we really haven’t. We still have the same brains as back then and they still have the instincts. This is why tribalism is such a prominent part of our society today even if it seems counterproductive.
With that being said, you are correct that nationalism is form of tribalism, but I don’t think that’s an inherently bad thing. Ultimately different groups of people are in fact different from each other. Different geographies, cultures, histories, languages, and customs do lead to very different societies. It makes sense that people identify with the society that they’re from. Nations are ultimately just our modern civilization’s version of the small tribal groups that our prehistoric ancestors had, and because of that, nations are here to stay because they appeal to nature. It’s not something that we can get rid of.
We have to make the distinction between nations and states because I don’t think you know the difference between them. A nation, by definition, is just a community of people who share a collective identity. It’s a social concept that exclusively refers to people and exists in the minds of people. A state, by definition, is the political sovereign entity that was created to rule. These are not interchangeable. There are nations that don’t have states like Kurdistan or the Uyghurs, and there are states that don’t have a single national identity like Bosnia or the UK. The point is that you’re confusing nations with states and countries, but these are not the same thing. Nations do NOT have physical or political characteristics like sovereignty or territory.
A nation is a fluid concept that doesn’t have defined edges, its what people say it is, and it exists as long as there are people who identify with it. For example, in the case of nation states, there are different kinds. For example, Armenia is nation based on ethnic nationalism where the nation is defined by the Armenian ethnicity. If you’re ethnically Armenian then you’re a part of the Armenian nation regardless of who you are and what you believe. Likewise you got the US, which is a nation that’s based civic nationalism where the nation is defined by political citizenship and shared values. As long as you hold those values and have American citizenship then you’re an American.
The point is that your claim of nationalism being dogmatic is wrong. A nation doesn’t have rigid edges nor does it segregate nor does it isolate. A nation, at its core, is just a set of identifiers that a group of people share. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It something that has its place in our world. Like with anything else, nationalism taken to the extreme is a bad thing, but when it’s not, its simply a way for people with commonalities to associate with each other. Even if you snap your fingers and everybody forgot what nationalism is, a new but very similar concept will emerge to take its place because people will always want to be a part of a greater good.
Well, I do concede that I’m very much fighting a losing battle against human nature. Humans are hard-wired for tribalism, and national identity is an easy way to take advantage of that. (One of many.)
But I do want to call attention to an internal tension within your argument:
all identities exist to include and exclude. That’s what an identity is, it’s a set of identifiers that makes something distinct to the things its compared to
versus
A nation doesn’t have rigid edges nor does it segregate nor does it isolate.
If it doesn’t have rigid edges, if it doesn’t segregate, if it doesn’t isolate … then how does it include and exclude? How does it accomplish what you say all identities exist to do?
I think I just worded myself poorly. What I meant is that all identities include and exclude because that’s just the nature of categorization. Identity, as a concept, only exist in the abstract. It only exists in people’s minds, and therefore, it has no rigid edges because psychology and no rigid edges. This is because identities, including collective identities, are defined subjectively by individuals. When an identity is codified and enforced, it stops being abstract and becomes an ideology because you’re trying structure society around a particular set of views. Ideologies are what rigid edges, segregate, and isolate.
For example, there’s nothing inherently wrong with defining being German as being ethnically German. That’s the standard definition of ethnic and national identity for most of human history. It only becomes a problem when an ideology comes in, boxes the identity with a strict definition, codifies this definition as the only one that’s allowed, and enforces it by trying to get rid of anybody who strays from it. That’s how you get the Nazis. The identity got stripped down to the arbitrary and subjective views of a few individuals who tried to impose them on everyone else. Somebody can identity as ethnically German and live with other ethnicities in peace.
Generally a collective of people acting as a community. Of course it is all the worst things too, but it doesn’t have to be. I think a big problem is that the borders meet each other due to how many humans are on a planet this size. But imagine an infinite landscape where nations are far apart. When you arrive at one, you may find a group of people that like to collectively offer a set of protections and provisions. They also might have a set or treaties with nearby nations so each can benefit from each other’s resources.
Idealism, I know, but I’m just expressing that nations as a concept doesn’t necessitate the bad parts.
Idealism, I know
Not just idealism, pure fantasy:
imagine an infinite landscape where nations are far apart.
That does not describe the real world in any way. Not even an ‘ideal’ world. It’s not even physically possible. (And people accuse us anarchists of living in idealist fantasy land!)
In the real world, land is not infinite. Anytime one group (whether you call it a nation or a community or whatever) tries to lay claim to a portion of the land to the exclusion of all others, that’s an act of violence – because it’s ultimately only enforceable through violence. Our finite earth belongs to us all. They did not create it, and they have no right (except ‘might makes right’ violence) to take portions of it away from you.
I explicitly pointed out that it was idealism. You’re barking at the moon. It’s like getting mad at a physics instructor for saying “imagine a frictionless surface and purely elastic collisions”. The point is to extract those things that can distract from a rigorous concept.
I’m not implying in anyway that this is the real world. Rather that the negative things associated with nationalism are not inextricably linked to the concept of national identity. If you don’t see it that way, fine. But this act like you think I meant this was a possible representation of the world we live in is just silly.
National liberation and sovereignty in colonized and neocolonized countries is a key first step in internationalism.
It’s a trap, a pitfall on the way to actual freedom. Who gave them the idea that they need nations and flags in the first place, if not the colonizers?
And many of the nations ‘liberated’ by previously colonized people just end up being a tool of their oppressors through neocolonization. Their national government – and even their national identity – are useful tools to be corrupted and controlled by colonizers.
No, this is myopic. Figures like Frantz Fanon and Kwame Nkrumah have correctly analyzed the necessity of establishing statehood and creating pan-African coalitions to resist the overwhelming might of western finance capital and neocolonialism. Nationalist compradors for neoimperialism are a consequence of deliberate balkanization and fragmentation by neocolonial powers. Same with Palestinian, Latin American, and Asian resistance to colonialism and neocolonialism.
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, and Neocolonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah are extremely useful and describe exactly the extent to which nationalism is useful in the anti-colonial context, and the extent to which it falters and holds the people back, devolving into tribalism. We can see the correctness of their views today with the progressive nationalist movements in resisting neocolonialism from Burkina Faso and the Alliance of Sahel States, where statelets are unifying into a front to support each other and resist foreign domination from France and the US.
the necessity of establishing statehood and creating pan-African coalitions to resist the overwhelming might of western finance capital and neocolonialism
A necessity? Perhaps. But a necessary evil, then.
National identity is still a bad thing. It should not be celebrated, and it should be abolished as soon as feasible.
National sovereignty, celebration of indigenous cultures and maintaining the rights of self-determination for all peoples, is the first step towards genuine internationalism. Genuine sovereignty cannot be imposed from without, but comes from within. Tribalism and the progressive elements of nationalism are separate things. The basis of genuine internationalism is nations on equal footing and sovereignty.
Nationalism in imperialist countries is exclusively negative. This is what is in service of perpetuating imperialism, and justifying racial supremacy. This is unambiguously an enemy to be crushed. Nationalism is not progressive in general, but in a particular context exclusively, such as Palestinian nationalism against genocide.
