Flags Are Cool!

Hey man, flags are cool! I know this is a super nerdy thing but I like flags, I don't collect them or anything I just like to look at them. And since I'm Scottish some of my favourite flags are Scottish, so here they are:

Scottish National Flag

Royal Banner of the King of Scots

Flag of Caithness

Flag of Shetland

Flag of Orkney

Flag of the Highlands

What are some of your favourite flags?

Rectangles are for suckers.

These are the most high-def flags I've ever seen.

My favourite has to be Albania:

@hayt: Yeah I love Nepal's flag. They were like "Fuck it, let's shape our flag like mountains".

@beachthunder: @jonny_anonymous: Caithness and Albania are both very cool indeed. For whatever reason, I have very vivid childhood memories of the Saint Lucian flag. None of my family members have been there to my knowledge so I don't know what this memory relates to. It's a neat design in any case.

@isomeri: That is a really nice flag. I always have a soft spot for flags with black and pale blue, Estonia's flag for instance. But the gold on the Saint Lucian and Caithness flags gives it a nice offset.

This thread reminded me of this TED talk I saw about flags.

Bangladesh. Just look at that flag. The American and the Icelandic flag come second and third for me.

Shetland had the right idea, but they inverted the colors. Here's the proper version.

@mmzone said:

Shetland had the right idea, but they inverted the colors. Here's the proper version.

But that's just the flag of Eastern Sweden. You forgot the red. Here's the true flag of Shetland (and a really pretty one at that!)

I can confirm the Chicago flag is on everything and everyone, at least in my neighborhood.

Let's all celebrate to the wonderful flag of the Marshall Islands:

A really cool unused proposed flag for Caithness. The wildcat represents the ancient Pictish Kingdom of Cats.

I like the Union Jack because it is a conglomeration of flags all mashed together with purpose and thinking, yet the overall flag looks good.

Flag for the city of Boston is cool....

...Well, not the official flag, but the only one Bostonians recognize as valid.

The California state flag has a bear on it and bears are cool.

@beachthunder: Yup, I've always loved the Albanian flag.

@beachthunder: You just exploded my brain.

Coming atcha with that hot fresh Scottish flag newz! Barra's new Flag:

@beachthunder: Yeah, I seen that was what it represents.

Not in Assassin's Creed 1 they're not. Fuck those things. Four-hundred and twenty of them. They're not marked on your map. They're hard to see. Collecting them gets you a measly four achievements and unlocks precisely nothing.

I think there are 420 of them because you'd have to be stoned out of your gourd to bother.

I once tried to look into why these types of designs are what country flags are, but I couldn't find anything that satisfied. Especially the flags that's are just one or two colours -- I just couldn't find the history why this concept was agreed upon on a global scale. Does anyone know?

@jaymii: What flags specifically do you mean?

Flagged for flags.

@splodge: I just realised that based on the title people probably think this is a troll thread about flagging comments.

Found this cool graph that shows off how the individual elements of the South Korean flag combine together.

Can't have a flag thread without posting....

If you're from Maryland you know whats up.

Mozambique has an ak-47 on their flag

I think the Welsh flag is badass. It's some straight fantasy shit.

@bson: Well I suppose that's fitting. It is, to my knowledge, the only nation to have a shooting technique named after it.

That Roman mars video showed me how cool Chinese city (Or Chinese Protectorate) flags are.Thanks @monkeyking1969

@beachthunder: Good flag, but it ain't got shit compared to this baby here (Holy Roman Empire). Looks like Ghidorah evolved into King Ghidorah there.

@bson: Holy shit, thats some post-communism ass flag right there.

Reminds me of regular USSR and North Korean symbolism. Acting (Protecting/Fighting) - Working (Living/Serving) - Scholarship (Practicing/Learning) tribulation is there. Besides that, the classic Marxist Star is also there. Great flag if you're into this kind of thing.

But nothing can beat the Flag of Bhutan from what I've seen. A Dragon carrying some Balls/is Proto-Rollerblading. Holy shit, Dragons went extinct because they realized they will never be as cool as this Dragon. Theres even different versions of the Dragon, in case people think its not cool enough already.

EDIT: Holy Dragonballs, the Bhutan Flag got adopted in 1969, all marks checked for being a good flag confirmed.

Dai Gurren flag. Nothing says badass more than a flaming skull with pointed sunglasses on it. Truly a symbol of Fighting Spirit!

@freedom4556: Sooner or later they are going to need to remove Scotland from the Union flag and add Wales but since the British Government is boring as fuck they will likely do this instead:

@bfz said:

Can't have a flag thread without posting....

If you're from Maryland you know whats up.

Graduated from UMD 1.5 years ago. Best flag ever. Also: Go Terps!

@hayt said:

Rectangles are for suckers.

I'm sure a fan of Nepal's unique flag already knows this, but for all you other aspiring vexillologists out there, the flag of Nepal's design is actually in their constitution. By that I mean the mathematical schedule for how to make it is in their constitution. Check it out.

@bfz said:

Can't have a flag thread without posting....

If you're from Maryland you know whats up.

Do you listen to CGP Grey's podcast Hello Internet? He is a huge fan of the Maryland flag, though for a reason you might not expect.

The county of Sweden where I live, Södermanland;

Here is the flag of the Serenissima Republic of Venice, with its winged lion enjoying a relaxing read

Here tho is the version where you pissed it off and he had to close its book a grab a sword

(chromatically they are a punch to the eye, but i always found them funny)

@freedom4556 said:

I think the Welsh flag is badass. It's some straight fantasy shit.

There is also China's old flag, which is much cooler than it's current imo.

I've always liked the Connacht flag.

Speaking of flags, being from Serbia I've always had a bit of a problem with our own flag, it was always too much for me. So I made a new one! What say you dudders?

@dimi3je: What's the history and symbology of both flags?

@mandude: It's basically just an inverted Russian flag with the Byzantine double-headed eagle (a symbol used by the Russian empire) in the crest.

@dimi3je: I quite like your re-design. What if you'd make the blue even more pronounced, like having the entire background be blue? By the way, I was in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina in November and it was a little unsettling seeing the Serbian flag on almost all flagpoles, walls of buildings, on peoples clothes etc. And in some parts of Serbia I've seen the Russian flag featured in much the same way.

The symbolism behind flags can be very powerful and it's always interesting to see how people identify themselves through the use of flags or crests. Here's a scene I came across on a street in the Chinese city of Nanchang, depicting the Nanchang uprising and revolutionaries tearing down the flags of the republic.

@isomeri: @mandude:

The history of the tricolor flag is not as interesting, as isomeri pointed out, but as the one behind the coat of arms is, mainly because it's so prolific in our culture. The shield with cross and the four ''c'' is widely considered to be THE national symbol.

As for the serbian flags in Bosnia. @isomeri you said you where in the northern part. Bosnia is a federation made up of three ''national'' states. One of them (the part you where in) is actually Serbian (Republika Srbska) and this is their flag. Interestingly the main inspiration for my design came from an older non official Republika Srpska flag that had the shield on it.

Thanks for the feedback here's a few versions I also made.

Gallery

We almost had this instead of the "Australia's flag but with one less star so it looks weirdly empty and even more of a visually unappealing cluster" flag we continue to have.

For all the problems with my home state/commonwealth of Virginia, historically and otherwise, our flag is fucking metal as hell. It's a lady with a (sheathed) sword in one hand, a spear in the other hand, and a boob hanging out standing on the chest of a dead king, above the Latin for "Thus always to tyrants"

@dimi3je: Thanks for clarifying that. I was aware of the division into national states, but didn't know that each had their own flag. I mainly saw the state flag in the Bosnian and Croatian areas. All the history in the former-Yugoslav areas is super interesting and traveling there has really opened my eyes to the intricacies of the different cultures.

As far as politically divisive symbolism is concerned, my own country has maintained a pretty interesting example. The Finnish air force squadron flag has had a swastika on it since 1918. The symbol of course has its origins in India, but has been somewhat tarnished by the acts of a certain political party and nation during WW2.

I absolutely adore the flag of my hometown of Portland, OR. I watched that TED Talk video a long time ago and was amazed that they weren't mentioning the Portland flag, being that it has everything he was talking about. I ended up loving that they saved it until the end. Put a smile on my face.

The shaping of the lines to represent the major roadways, the colors to represent the nature, and the simplicity. I love this flag.

I was born in Bosnia and have always loved the Croatian flag as well. There's something about the patterns in it and the colors. It is absolutely one of my favorite flags.

Angola's sickle and machete combo is a nice colonial throwback.