Vexillology - Research

I took this last week to do more in-depth research into flags, and what makes a "good" flag. Of all the nations in the world, there are only two instances in which multiple countries have identical flags, meaning that there are, in modern day, over 200 unique flags to represent the independent nations of the world. Add to that the number of flags that exist for sub-divisions, states, provinces, cities, counties, and the number skyrockets. However, when you go into these sub-divisions of nations the likelihood for a set of identical or very similar flags increases. Look at the US State Flags for instance:

Source: Wikipedia

Over half of these flags are simply a single colour background with the specific State's Seal on it, and maybe the name of the state under it, and most of those are also on a dark blue background as well, making the similarity even more. Many of these flags you probably cannot differentiate from the others without looking closely at them - to read the name off of the flag.

So, what makes a good flag then? Well its rather simple really. The best flags are unique, and also very easy to identify from a distance. A flag should pop out, you should be able to look at a flag and say "Ah yes, that is [country]," without having to sit and think if it is another country. Unfortunately that already is a common issue on the international level as well. A good example of several nations that have very similar flags would be the countries of Central America. To be specific: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua all have very similar flags: two blue stripes and one white stripe with some symbol in the middle. Obviously, a trained eye would be able to spot out the differences easily, but from a far distance and to an untrained eye they all appear very similar. These common flags are often a result of the nations all having a common cultural group, or common origin, like those central american nations previously listed.

That's about all for today. Progress on the Imperial Stolzonian flag has been halted indefinitely, as drawing a double-headed eagle has turned out to be much more complex than I had originally thought. In the meanwhile I decided to make a "coat-of-arms" style version of the Stolzonian Flag.