List of national flags by design

A national flag is a flag that represents and symbolizes a country or nation-state. Flags come in many shapes and designs, which often represent something about the country or people that the flag represents. Common design elements of flags include shapes — such as crescent moons, crosses, stars, stripes, and suns — layout elements such as including a canton (a rectangle with a distinct design, such as another national flag), and the overall shape of a flag, such as the aspect ratio of a rectangular flag — whether the flag is square or rectangle, and how wide it is — or the choice of a non-rectangular flag. Sometimes these flags are used as a short-hand guide to represent languages on say, tourist information or versions of websites on internet.

Many countries with shared history, culture, ethnicity, or religion have similarities in their flags that represent this connection. Sets of flags in this list within the same category may represent countries' shared connections — as with the Scandinavian countries exhibiting the Nordic cross on their flags — or the design similarity may be a coincidence — as with the red and white flags of Indonesia and Monaco.

For clarity, unless stated, all flags shown are the civil flag of the nation state / country recognised as such by the United Nations — the state flags, (usually of the government), along with the flags of autonomous countries, regions, and territories of a UN nation state will be annotated in italics as such.

A great many flags have a single defined aspect ratio. The most common aspect ratio is 2:3, followed by 1:2. Some flags have multiple acceptable ratios, or do not define any ratio at all, such as the Union Jack of the UK having its commonest aspect ratios of 1:2 followed by 2:3.

The following flags have a distinctive specified aspect ratio:

One horizontal bi-color division with a band or a triangle at the hoist

Three horizontal bi-color stripes with a band or a triangle at the hoist

Many horizontal bi-color stripes with a band, a canton, or a triangle at the hoist

Three horizontal tri-color stripes with a band or a triangle at the hoist

Historical

The following are the government / state flag only — the national civil flag is without the arms.

Historically

Notably, the Union Jack features in many territorial and sub-national flags usually based on the Red Ensign, (e.g.  Bermuda), or Blue Ensign, (e.g.  New South Wales). The British Ensign is used in a few cases with backgrounds of other colours, (e.g.  The British Antarctic Territory and  Niue), or a unique pattern in the field, (e.g.  The British Indian Ocean Territory and  Hawaii). Some flags use the Union Jack other than at the canton, (e.g.  British Columbia). Unofficial flags also use it, (e.g.  The Ross Dependency of Antarctica).

Historically

Historically