Yeah, I like flags. To some they’re symbols of misplaced national pride or a banner to wave over the down trodden. But we mustn’t blame the flag for that. It is the flag waver that is to blame, not the patterns on a bit of cloth.
So, ladies and gentlemen, if you will: please leave nationalistic skin-headery and bigoted ‘them and us’ thoughts at the door. I want you to enjoy the flags for what they truly are: patterns and pictures.
So, we’ll start with (as far as I know) the only continent with its own flag: Antarctica. Only around 5,000 people live on the entire continent.
This flag is great, but if you look at the Wikipedia page, it doesn’t look like it’s Antwerp’s official flag. So maybe this isn’t even a flag?
The Benin empire — not to be confused with the modern country of Benin — was in the area now known as Nigeria from 1440 to 1897.
The original founders of the Benin Empire, the Edo people, initially called their land Igodomigodo.
Bhutan is a landlocked state bordering India and China. Business Week named it the 8th happiest country to live in the world. It’s mostly Buddhist, and there are roughly 750,000 people living in 18,000 square miles.
The red bits are pompeblêden, or leaves of the yellow water-lily. Something to do with their maritime history.
Guam is a US-owned island in the Western Pacific. The USA saved them from the Japanese who occupied them for a couple of years in the 1940’s and gave them an incredibly hard time.
Lombardy is the richest region in Italy, in fact one of the richest in Europe. That’s how they could afford such a top-draw flag. It reminds me of certain regional Japanese flags, if you haven’t seen them, click here.
The shape in the middle is called a “Rosa camuna,” and it represents a prehistoric drawing made by the Camuni people who lived in the Camuna Valley in Lombard.
The valley is now UNESCO protected as there are over 140,000 prehistoric figures and symbols. Some of the scrawls date back to 1200 BC.
Despite this ancient pedigree, the flag looks refreshingly modern.
In 1817, a republican revolution attempted to overthrow the monarchy in the region of Pernambuco. The revolutionaries used a blue and white flag, the blue symbolising the sky and the white the land.
The cross signified religion, the rainbow signalled the beginning of a new period, the star symbolised the state, and the sun lighted the future.
