Flags of the World

January 17, 2003 12:24 AM

What's that flag? Flags of the World is an awesome website full of all sorts of vexillological info. If you don't know your canton from your burgee, are trying to ID a strange flag, or learn the difference between the Stars and Bars (not the battle flag) and the Star-Spangled Banner, this is the site for you.
posted by Vidiot (17 comments total)

Dude! A Coloring book! I can finally correct Japan's flag and make it yellow.
posted by Stan Chin at 12:27 AM on January 17, 2003

Too bad they don't have a flagburning function to shock my patriotic netizens.
posted by ugly_n_sticky at 1:33 AM on January 17, 2003

I love you Stan Chin.

Thing I Learned Today: this is called the coat of arms. I thought it was called the seal. Real or malarkey?

In a similar vein, I've always been a fan of the logos developed for each of the Olympic games (summary of all Games since 1896 here, favorite logo is the mod Mexico68 logo here)
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:35 AM on January 17, 2003

Wow!

Who'd have thought that my little country (Wales) would have had so much vexillological history? -- I knew we had the coolest flag though...


Cool Post.
posted by couch at 2:25 AM on January 17, 2003

Serendipity. I was just thinking about making a new set of desktop icons using flags. Thanks for this great resource.
posted by iconomy at 5:11 AM on January 17, 2003

More vexillogical discourse can be found here.
posted by piskycritter at 5:15 AM on January 17, 2003

Can anyone find the link to that website where the guy wrote scathing commentaries on the flags of the world? I loved that site!
posted by Erasmus at 5:37 AM on January 17, 2003

This?
posted by iconomy at 5:53 AM on January 17, 2003

Oops. I meant to link to the post.
posted by iconomy at 5:56 AM on January 17, 2003

WolfDaddy,

Great link. My fav is the 1972 Munich games logo...swirly. And don't forget Waldi the mascot.
posted by thewittyname at 6:53 AM on January 17, 2003

I don't know I'm pretty partial to the 1928 Amsterdam logo.

Great post, thanks!
posted by Pollomacho at 7:00 AM on January 17, 2003

The Republic of Maryland
posted by stbalbach at 7:20 AM on January 17, 2003

Screw Maryland, long live Bong!
posted by Pollomacho at 7:31 AM on January 17, 2003

WolfDaddy, the FOTW site says: Following the adoption of the Constitution of 1787, Congress enacted a law confirming this design as the great seal of the United States. The obverse of the seal consists of the coat of arms

I never knew the seal had a back till your question piqued my curiosity and I found Greatseal.com. Interesting.
posted by Vidiot at 8:25 AM on January 17, 2003

That Munich logo hurts my eyes; I can't stand Op Art. Nifty site, WolfDaddy.

by the way, is there some rule that Olympic mascots have to be incredibly lame?
posted by Vidiot at 8:36 AM on January 17, 2003

Without referring to this link, and unless you are an Australian or a New Zealander, I dare you to pick either flag out in a line-up.

In other news, the Hawaii flag is a gem.
posted by hama7 at 4:40 AM on January 18, 2003

hama7, both flags have stars on them, and the Union Jack. New Zealands stars are red and five-pointed, I believe, whereas Australias stars are uh, more than five-pointed and white.

I remember what they look like because as a kid when learning all this stuff, I also like looking at the stars in the nighttime sky and so some sort of connection was made.

What do I win? :-)
posted by WolfDaddy at 5:46 AM on January 18, 2003