If there’s something I enjoy more than leafing through my Atlas, it’s sitting down with my Flag encyclopedia. Call me a flaggot if you like, in fact, my in-the-closet dream profession is designing flags. But until that happens, and while I practice, I will keep on admiring and take heed of these here:


Antigua and Barbuda - Where the sun always shines and the sky is always black.


Aruba - How the Swedish flag could've looked like if Scandinavian flag designers had any imagination.


Bonaire - A sea captain-ish flag, with a touch of Judaism.


Chuvashia - This flag was designed by the regional president's 10 year old daughter.


Comoros - "What can we add to make it more decorative?" "How about a few stars in the gape of the moon?"
"Oh hey, now it looks like a very hungry Pacman is eating them!" "Cool, I like it!"


Dagestan - The happiest flag in the world.


Djibouti - Tasteful and elegant is all I have to say.


Guyana - Looks like this one was lifted off an optical elusion quiz.


Isle of Man - Brilliant. It kills me every time I see it. I believe it was designed around the same time LSD was invented.


Macao - Hong Kong's little brother's flag might as well been designed by the good people of Adidas.


Marshall Islands - My personal favorite. Something very nostalgic yet futuristic about this one - a sort of sixties space-race era (which was the best period for design in my opinion).




Mozambique's old and new flags - I guess the government's two main emphasis, literacy and shooting, haven't changed between flags. The old design is way better though. But what is that tool underneath the gun??


Nagorno-Karabakh - A devoted Tetris fan designed this one. And it was originally meant for the Mooninites.


Namibia - Another colorful and appealing flag that contains no jokes.


Papua New Guinea - You can't go wrong with a bird on the flag. Or the hint of outer space. Bravo.


Rwanda - Can't really go wrong with the sun either. Especially when it's this fine.


Sardinia - An island state founded by escaped slaves on their way to capture England. Their dream lives on in this flag.


Seychelles - Originally the flag of Rainbow Brite's realms.


Tocantins - Yet another stylish use of sun and simple lines.


Tokyo - One of the very few purple flags out there. But the emblem looks unsettling like some ancient torture apparatus.


Uganda - Designed by a German punk who'd had a little too much to drink of the local moonshine.

From this flag-off one can judge that Africa has clearly the best designers, with the total of seven flags on the list, but the global pattern of this sample reveals however that island states make the best flags, as half of the flags on the list belong to islands, whether they are located in the Caribbean, the Pacific, off Africa, or even in Europe (which I have learned is the worst continent for flag design). Another excellent flag location seems to lie in former Soviet regions, which claim three flags combined on this list. Other honorable mentions go to Asian cities and South American regions. As I said, not much going on for Europe, which will obviously be my niche. Time for some flag make-overs..