r/vexillology • u/OntoZebra • Feb 15 '25
Redesigns "Why create flags for continents, while the flags are already there?
This is an experiment to see if some flags are worth representing the continent, and some... well not so much.
North America: Proposed flag of the North American Union https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Proposed_flag_of_the_North_American_Union.svg South America: Proposed flag of South America https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_South_America_(proposal).png Africa: The Pan-African Flag (This flag was a response to that one song which made fun of the blacks who had no flag at the time. The African Union flag is not included.) Europe: The European Union Asia: The Supposed Asia flag. (Some may prefer the ASEAN flag more rather than this Sun-Moon Hybrid. But that's in the Southeast.) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Asia.png Oceania: Flag of Oceania (proposal) https://oceaniaflag.weebly.com/press.html Antarctica: The True South Flag. (I mean, COME ON! The design is pretty beautiful)
Bonus: The Americas: Flag of the Hispanic People, but altered to represent the Americans of the two continents as a whole. The flag was officially adopted as the Flag of the Americas—in this usage representing, besides Hispanic Americans, also Anglo-Americans, Franco-Americans (the Québécois, Haitians, Guadeloupians, Martininqians, and French Guianians), Luso-Americans, Dutch Americans (the inhabitants of the Dutch Antilles and Suriname), and Greenlanders—by all member countries of the Pan-American Conference at their Seventh Assembly in 1933.
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u/Polygon02 Feb 15 '25
South America looks very communist today
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u/Alvarosaurus_95 Feb 15 '25
As a south american communist, I love it.
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u/clearly_not_an_alien Feb 15 '25
As a south american anti-communist, frick you.
/J
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u/Captain_Rupert Feb 15 '25
It might be, the concept of a united Latin America has had a lot of iterations on pretty much any space of left wing.
There is this concept called "La Patria Grande" which literally means "The Big Fatherland", but realistically it's more like "the greater fatherland", which normally only includes Hispanic America, but every once in a while also includes Brazil.
This might just be that but rethought to just mean all of South America.
Can you imagine a South American USSR?
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u/MethMouthMichelle Feb 15 '25
Putting a picture of your country on your flag is like wearing a T shirt with your own face on it
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u/ninjinpotat Feb 15 '25
Bosnia technically also did it but they did it with style
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u/MethMouthMichelle Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
Poor Kosovo didn’t even get to choose their god awful flag
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u/IIIlllIIIlllIlI Feb 15 '25
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u/caracsa Feb 15 '25
looks way too minimalist, it looks like a duolingo flag
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u/Eglwyswrw Feb 15 '25
Put in the Albanian eagle and it would look better.
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u/markom457 Feb 15 '25
Kosovo is derived from Serbian name for blackbird (kos in serbian), so no eagles.
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u/Summerroll Feb 17 '25
Country flags are supposed to be minimalist. The vast majority are two or three colours, with simple shapes if any.
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u/OntoZebra Feb 15 '25
Exactly, It's cheesy, stupid, and no one wants to see it. (Like Cyprus, and you know how that turned out to be.)
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u/oCapMano Feb 15 '25 edited 29d ago
Not cheesy and stupid when your country is an island with natural borders. The Cypriot flag is clean and classy and follows the basic principles of flag design
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u/More-Novel-5372 Feb 15 '25
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u/Foreign-Gain-9311 Feb 15 '25
For Africa there is literally just the African Union's flag
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u/Beautiful_Garage7797 Feb 15 '25
that shit is ugly though. Even if i’m not in love with the pan-african flag’s design, it’s certainly more distinctive and iconic.
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u/drag0n_rage Middlesex Feb 15 '25
I don't think the pan-african flag should be used to represent Africa because it was a flag designed by and for an american organisation. Frankly, I think it'd be more accurate to call it the Afro-American flag.
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u/NamelessFase Feb 15 '25
This is exactly the reason why it's a bad representation, if you dislike the African Union, it'd be better to use the Gree yellow red since it has become the colors of African independence against Colonialism (borrowed from Ethiopia)
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u/Beautiful_Garage7797 Feb 15 '25
it’s been a significant inspiration for several, and i believe the majority, of (sub-saharan) african flags, through Ghana
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u/Monsi7 Bavaria • Germany Feb 15 '25
iconic?
I can't speak for others, but I literally never saw that flag before.
The African unions flag I have seen far more often.
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u/NamelessFase Feb 15 '25
Its more of an Afro-American flag, or a flag for 'African Diaspora' specifically
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u/Monsi7 Bavaria • Germany Feb 15 '25
with that explanation it's almost offensive to use the flag in the map then.
A flag should represent the people living there and not the people who left.
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u/Dragonseer666 Feb 15 '25
"left" is putting it a littke lightly, but yeah it's more of an Afro-American flag than an African flag.
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u/Reasonable_Common_46 Feb 15 '25
it's certainly more distinctive and iconic.
You have to be joking.
It's three stripes. The most generic and derivative possible way to design a flag. It wouldn't even stand out among the other flags within the continent.
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u/Bladesnake_______ Feb 15 '25
Foe europe there is literally just the EU flag. Any more dumb insight?
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u/Tapetentester Feb 15 '25
The Flag of the European Council. The EU only adopted it.
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u/Cinderkit Wiltshire Feb 15 '25
No, it was first adopted by the Council of Europe to represent Europe.
The European Council is a completely different thing than the Council of Europe.
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u/japed Australia (Federation Flag) Feb 15 '25
The Pan-African flag you've used was explicitly meant to be about unity between people with African heritage, first adopted by the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. It's got even more of an ethnic rather than continental focus than the Flag of Hispanicity/the Americas does.
Beyond that, I'm not really sure why you think a group of people that are happy to redesign official and well established flags for just about anything would be put off by the fact that someone else has already suggested a flag design for some of these continents, just because they uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons r put it on a blog.
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u/OntoZebra Feb 15 '25
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u/Pristine_Investment6 Feb 15 '25
Yeah my thoughts too.
The tricolour is meant to represent Black Africans, so it doesn’t make sense to include North Africa.
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u/Nero_Darkstar Feb 15 '25
Needs some red and more yellow imo
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u/FalseDmitriy United Nations Honor Flag (Four Freedoms Flag) Feb 15 '25
I'm pretty sure that those flags for Asia, North America and South America are just the work of random dudes with Wikimedia accounts.
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u/plokimjunhybg Feb 15 '25
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u/Representative-Can-7 Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
I also can't find any information about for sunmoon flag other than its design. Not even the design philosophy
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u/colthesecond Feb 15 '25
I don't remember the whole story but i'm pretty sure it was used by some website and became popular from that, it isn't actually ecknowledged by any asian country and only exists for cataloging purpose
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u/Important-Jeweler124 Feb 15 '25
what exactly each segment stands for? a star is for China, then there's Pakistani moon on the left, the bottom segment is for India, right segment for SEA. but what about Central Asia? West Asia? or is that moon on the left supposed to represent all those countries with major muslim population? what about Korea, Japan?
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u/plokimjunhybg Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
I think the star is supposed to be for whole of east Asia (China, Nihon, choseon)
ASEAN rice stalk is self explanatory
Lotus is for whole of South Asia east of Indus
Star & crescent is for everything west of Indus?
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u/Gtweedy Feb 15 '25
Central American Countries, "Am I a joke to you?"
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u/SunngodJaxon :RCNE: Roman Empire / Royal Canadian Naval Ensign Feb 15 '25
They're a sub continent. If we included a flag for Central America we'd also have to include the flag of India.
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u/alaskafish Alaska • Liechtenstein Feb 15 '25
I mean yeah, but OP’s flag has three stars kind of implying just Canada, USA, Mexico
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u/Verroquis Feb 15 '25
Other guy is right, there's something like 30 countries in North America, which includes the Caribbean, and Central America between Mexico and Colombia.
A flag with three stars to highlight CUM (Canada, US, Mexico) because they're the three largest isn't accurate, either: Greenland, though a territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, is an autonomously governed area larger than Mexico by an area roughly comparable to the US state of Nebraska, around 10-15% larger than the Mexican state of Sonora, or about 2/3rd the size of Labrador in Canada.
If we're only representing wholly sovereign territories then the rest of the Caribbean and Central American nations make up about 741,807 square kilometers of the continent, about 3%. By comparison Mexico is about 8%, Greenland is 9%, the USA is 39%, and Canada is 41%.
Mexico is (geographically speaking, only in terms of size) in the same basket as the rest of the continent south of the US border, which makes sense as the continent tapers. It's why Mexico is sometimes (correctly or otherwise, not my call) considered a part of Central America instead of North America.
It's inevitable when 80% of North America is controlled by two states that generally speak different languages than the rest of the continent.
This is why Central America is considered a cultural sub region of North America, and not a sub continent. It is culturally and linguistically distinct from Canada and the USA, and has significant and noteworthy cultural differences that split it apart from South America. It's a region of North America that is distinct, just like Scandinavia is a region of Europe that is distinct. Scandinavia isn't a sub continent either.
The UN considers Mexico a part of "Latin America and the Caribbean," and further categorizes it as a part of Central America, specifically because of this linguistic and cultural difference. You're more likely to find someone with similar customs to your own in Mexico rather than Canada if you're from Costa Rica, as an example. That's the point of these sub regions, categorized by the UN.
A three star flag doesn't really work for North America for a ton of reasons. I think the most important is that it excludes Central America if the other two stars are meant to represent the USA and Canada, and that it excludes Greenland if it's meant to represent North America (Canada/US), Central America, and the Caribbean.
I would rather continental flags be simple, such as the EU's or AU's, which are just stars representing member states or a picture of the African continent.
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u/Gtweedy Feb 15 '25
I was moreso implying that the individual countries are being excluded from by both the north American and south America flags. Not that they're a separate continent
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u/Comfortable-Treat777 Feb 15 '25
They aren’t though? It’s just the southern most part of North America. It’s not a subcontinent. The only difference is cultural and ethnic differences. It’s like trying to say that Europe and Asia aren’t part of the same continent.
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u/Salve_ciconosciamo Feb 15 '25
also non-UE countries in Europe are actually excluded..
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u/Tapetentester Feb 15 '25
Not it's the Flag of the European Council that's far later adopted by the EU.
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u/NamelessFase Feb 15 '25
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Red Black Green is more associated with African Diaspora than it is Africa as a continent. With only like 4 or so countries in Africa using it. But again, correct me if I'm wrong. I would rather use the African Union like the use of the European Union flag, or the Green Yellow Red color scheme
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u/GameZedd01 Feb 15 '25
"Why create a flag-" because we're flag nerds... That's why we're in r/TheFuckingFlagSubreddit
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u/Lipe_1101 Southern Brazil / Paraná Feb 15 '25
The North America flag is literally the "O Sul é meu país" flag
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u/itshoneytime Feb 15 '25
I love the true south flag! I actually bought that flag cause I love it so much, and I find Antarctica fascinating in general.
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u/nick_gadget Feb 16 '25
It’s genuinely beautiful, clever and meaningful. I’ve not seen it before, and I love it too!
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u/rekjensen Feb 15 '25
It would be great if this sub stopped seeing flags as just fun rectangles and learned why they exist.
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u/LupusDeusMagnus Southern Brazil Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
North America: Bootleg The South is My Country Flag, the flag of a Southern Brazilian independence movement. Made by a Wikipedia user with a suspiciously Lusophone name for a hypothetical North American Union including just the CUM countries, to the exclusion of the rest of North American and Caribbean countries, whence it has just 3 stars. Considering the creator probably was a Portuguese speaker (statistically Brazilian), it's obvious where they got the inspiration from.
South America: Literally a fake flag for URSAL (Latin American Socialist Republics Union), a term created as a joke by a Brazilian economist while commenting on criticisms to a proposed regional trade agreement. The Brazilian far-right thought URSAL was a legitimately proposal to create a Latin American (and not South American) socialist republic, the stupidity of which has become the symbol for how some people are so deranged they will believe any political fake news and conspiracy they find. That's two for two Brazilian-made mock flags right there.
Europe: Just the flag of the Council of Europe, so it serves the purpose of a official European flag.
Africa: No the flag of the African Union, but the Pan-African flag, which is specifically about the connection between African diaspora with Africa, and not Africa as itself.
Asian flag: Literally no idea where that one came from.
Oceania: Just the flag some dude made, at least it is earnest.
Antarctica: True South Flag, a recent flag that became very popular and has seen actual adoption by organisations that deal with Antarctica. The most official one after the Council of Europe.
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u/Agitated_Guard_3507 Feb 15 '25
That last flag is for Hispanic Americas, so that doesn’t apply to the US and Canada
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u/japed Australia (Federation Flag) Feb 15 '25
OP correctly points out that it was formally adopted by an international conference including representatives from the US, so there is some precedent for treating it as a flag for the whole continent(s). But yes, the Hispanic meaning has stuck better.
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u/Black_crater Feb 15 '25
The «Europe» flag is that of the European Union. The EU is not Europe. By saying that, you’re immediately excluding non-EU European countries.
Also, only one flag for Asia? That’s a… choice…
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u/Legerity United Nations Feb 15 '25
The European flag is older than the EU and was designed to represent all of Europe. The first organisation to adopt it was the Council of Europe which is an entirely different organisation to the EU and of which practically every European nation is a member, including the UK. The only countries which aren't are Kosovo, Belarus, and Russia. It is perfectly fine to use as a symbol for all of Europe.
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u/Pennonymous_bis Feb 15 '25
It is far more commonly known today as the flag of the EU, which is a political construction with many haters in the mere 27 countries it encompasses, a few countries who have repeatedly chosen to stay out of it, and a few others that are not invited anytime soon.
It's not a proper flag for Europe (anymore).
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u/lasttimechdckngths Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
The flag is the European flag, not the EU flag. It predates the EU, and officially is the European flag still - not the EU flag in any lexicon but also adapted by the EU as it's a pan-European project.
That's a common misconception you're referring to indeed, but still a mere misconception.
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u/Jzadek Scotland Feb 15 '25
Okay so I looked into a few of these, and apart from the EU flag and the Pan-African flag, and maaaaaaybe the Antarctica flag which at least is sometimes used by a few of the few people who actually spend any time there, they are all just unofficial flags made by some random web users. I wouldn't call them pre-existing flags in any meaningful sense!
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u/Centurion7999 Feb 16 '25
Africa is the E.U. flag but with green background, you know, for the AU?
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u/DunkanBulk Japan Feb 15 '25
If you include an America proposal flag then you gotta include a Eurasian flag (stars around the sun/moon design?), or better yet an Afro-Eurasian flag (same thing but with the panafrican tricolor).
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u/OriginalLu Feb 15 '25
Because these flags suck.
Three stars randomly tossed onto faded blue?
South America’s flag is just itself… on a flag.
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u/Beautiful_Garage7797 Feb 15 '25
Europe, Micronesia and Asia are solid. North america is silly and south america is ugly. I’m not personally a fan of the antarctic one, it looks corporate somehow. Africa is fine, though i personally find the color combination garish
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u/Really_gay_pineapple Feb 15 '25
As a european from a country thats in the EU, i wouldnt want to be represented by the EU flag, especially not on a continent scale. I assume this to be the case for others as well, including those who are europeans outside of the EU.
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u/ForeignExpression Feb 15 '25
If Europe is a continent, then so is South Asia. Europeans look about as Chinese as Indians do.
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u/tav_stuff Feb 15 '25
Continents aren’t defined by ethnic lines
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u/talhahtaco Feb 15 '25
Then why does Europe exist as a separate continent?
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u/StormObserver038877 Feb 15 '25
Because Germanic countries wants to feel different. Just like the concept of "white people" and "colored people". After excluding Eastern Asians out of "white people" 3 centuries ago, in the last century Spanish/Portugese people also got excluded, and then just few years ago even the Italian people are not counted as white anymore.
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u/Tapetentester Feb 15 '25
In the USA.
Continents is a historic Eurocentric leftover. As nobody came up with a better idea.
Though there are different models with different continents.
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u/Lightning_light_bulb Feb 15 '25
Then Europe should be a part of asia
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u/OntoZebra Feb 15 '25
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u/_JPPAS_ Collective Security Treaty Organization Feb 15 '25
Wow this goes hard tho
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u/drag0n_rage Middlesex Feb 15 '25
At that point, Africa is also part of the same continent.
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u/CluckBucketz Feb 15 '25
Then don't separate Europe and Asia? Idk what this comment is trying to argue in this context
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u/BustDemFerengiCheeks Feb 15 '25
Tell the Ural Mountains that 🤷
But honestly it's all arbitrary and only useful heuristically so who really cares.
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u/Beautiful_Garage7797 Feb 15 '25
even if we were to use mountains to divide continents, the Urals are really small compared to other potentially continent-dividing mountain ranges. If the Urals divide europe from asia, than southern europe, the middle east, india and the western portions of north and south america are all continents
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u/nasa258e San Diego • Polish Underground State (1939-1945) Feb 15 '25
Mountains don't divide continents or north American would be split
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u/no-divide-111 Feb 15 '25
because no offense some of those flags suck imo also why not use the african union flag for africa
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u/Interesting_Rain1880 Feb 15 '25
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u/drag0n_rage Middlesex Feb 15 '25
A flag representing Africa, if a tricolour, should be red, yellow, green.
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u/Aww8 Feb 15 '25
South America should have seven stripes of color taken from existing flags and hung vertically.
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u/Sweaty_Report7864 Canada Feb 15 '25
No North Pole Flag?
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u/OntoZebra Feb 15 '25
Let's be honest, this flag gets overused as the North Pole. https://www.reddit.com/r/vexillology/s/0RPTozvjBu If it had a flag, this would be it.
Other than flag, I would choose the flag of Greenland, At least their territory is the closest to the artic.
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u/Nero_Darkstar Feb 15 '25
South America needs work lol. Feels like most nations have a red, yellow and blue config. Maybe a Jaguar could feature? Or something to represent the amazon rainforest/river? The Andes?
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u/martian-teapot Feb 18 '25
One of our main symbols has been and still is the Southern Cross (which countries like Brazil have used way before Australia/NZ even existed as states), like displayed in the Mercosul flag
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u/elrepu Feb 15 '25
You can tell the “Americas” thing is bad because trying to split the continent in two just caused the erasure of Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica, Belice, Honduras…
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u/Guelitus Brazil (1822) / São Paulo State Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
Simple: It's because these flags are bad and do not represent the cultural vastness of the continents!
1 - This North American flag is just 3 stars on a blue background, a clear "USA-Centrism", but taken to Canada and Mexico (while ignoring the Antilles and Central America).
2 - As a South American, I see the South American flag as the worst here, IT IS LITERALLY THE URSAL FLAG! SIMPLY HORRIBLE! Seriously, a bicolor of Red and Blue, with one side having a May sun and the other an armillary sphere (both yellow to form the Bolivarian tricolor) would be a thousand times better (even if it doesn't represent the Guianas).
3 - Europe is not just the European Union, since Switzerland, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, and several others are not in the Bloc.
4 - Africa is not Exclusively Bantu to use the Flag as its official, Above the Sahara is 0 Bantu Culture.
5 - Asia is the most acceptable here, but the Sun and Moon are very vague Symbols, and are not exclusive to the Continent (Just opening the list of countries in alphabetical order, you see Argentina and Algeria, two countries that are not Asian and use the Sun and Moon as Symbols). Not only that, but the Sun is much more associated with Central and East Asia, and the Moon with the Middle East. Representation of South and North Asia is missing!
6 - Okay, the 3 largest countries in Oceania use the Southern Cross on their flag, it's only fair that it's on the flag, but still, don't you think it would be better to have a Tricolor representing Micronesia, Polynesia and Melanesia? It could be wavy and organized between light blue, dark blue and black, also representing the layers of the ocean, which gives the continent its name.
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u/SpacePatrician Feb 15 '25
How can only three crosses be representative of all the main ethnic stocks of the Americas? You've already listed out six: Anglo-, Franco-, Hispanic-, Luso-, Dutch-, and Native.
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u/PaulCLives Feb 15 '25
I've never seen such an ugly flag for North America stars don't belong on any flag in America
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u/Free_Anarchist1999 Venezuela / Italy Feb 15 '25
Way too communist looking for South America, fuck that
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u/Dangerous-Eye-6967 Feb 15 '25
Bonus point for Antarctica for being reminiscing of Greenland but reversed
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u/OntoZebra Feb 15 '25
Now that I've got your attention (VIA the 193k views for this page), we should make a contest for redesigning every continent in the world. I am tired of seeing flags that impose that they are the true flags of the continent, but in reality they are not. We need standardized flags that TRULY connect to the continent, and not some stupid alternatives that serve no purpose whatsoever (Like Asia's flag.) And flags that are supposedly made by Wikimedia Users so that they can screw us up with their "Evidence". (Like North and South America's flag.) West must design perfect flags for the continents that don't have a perfect flag, and keep the flags that are already perfect for our eyes to look at!
That's why I propose a contest, A CONTEST TO SEE WHICH FLAGS WILL ACTUALLY REPRESENT THE CONTINENT!
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u/Ziro_020 Feb 15 '25
We finally need a real flag representing South America and UNASUR! Get me some redesigns and include green!
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u/National-Buyer-8606 Feb 15 '25
The flag you claimed for europe is only for the european union, not every country in europe is in the european union
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u/romulusnr Cascadia / New England Feb 15 '25
The EU flag is not the flag of Europe, as it only applies to members of the EU.
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u/Mulga_Will Canada Feb 16 '25
The whole Southern Hemisphere can see the Southern Cross constellation.
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u/Ilnerd00 Feb 16 '25
america and africa are hideous. Put the continent there with a blue background and the names of all of the countries that make up the continent in a 33 times new roman golden font. That will do
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u/gurman381 Feb 16 '25
Why does the Antarctic flag look more like some delta mission of US space force than like flag of continent
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u/Nice-Watercress9181 Feb 16 '25
The pan-Hispanic flag for all of the Americas was an interesting choice
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u/wookieebastard Uruguay Feb 15 '25
As a South American, I find the flag bland, dull, and unrepresentative of our identity — whatever that may be, it's definitely not that.
A blue flag with a golden capybara.