Ten Best Flags of the World

I love flags. There, I said it and I feel better already about it. As long as I can remember I have had an unbridled infatuation with flags. I have always loved to decipher their secrets, their meanings, their warring pretenses, and their claims of universal liberties and peace. Flags are perhaps the most important woven items in history. The have been used to navigate ships, identify nationalities, proclaim territories, signify team loyalty, and so much more. For some reason I wanted to examine my favorite and least favorite national flags. Since I spend way too much time analyzing and comparing them I thought I would offer up a Ten Best/Ten Worst list out of the two hundred or so flags of the world. While it is almost impossible to objectively look at flags for me without taking some political or historical fact into play I am doing this list hopefully strictly out of my feeble artistic sense. In other words whatever looks best to me and my personal art biases will be the ultimate deciding factor. As you will see there is no USA or Great Britain or any Western European countries. This is because of the preponderance of the boring three bar color scheme or the equally boring stripe theme. While these colors mean various wonderful things (liberty, equality, etc.) and there are some excellent flags (Ireland, Spain, Germany, Iceland, etc.), they don't really rank in either the best or worst so without further discussion on to the list.




THE PROUD BUT NOT THE BEST






10) LEBANON
---A simple and strange flag. When I think of Lebanon I can't help but think of Beruit under siege or scenes of multinational tourists sun-soaking in a seaside daze. I picked this flag because it makes me think of Christmas which most definitely is not the intention of the creator or followers of the flag. Nice tree, nice colors, simple, weird.







9)SRI LANKA
---A colorful and distinct flag. A little nod to their Indian neighbors to the north with two-bar color scheme in the left corner. Mostly I love the sword brandishing tiger and the four-pointed leaf display. A little regal and war mongering. Very cool.







8)SWAZILAND
---Obviously the motif is pure African. The Zulu shield also doubles as sort of a Rohrshach test. It has all the goods of pre-colonial Africa in its shield, spears, and tribal branding. Great color scheme and powerful, strong flag.











7) DOMINICA
---This Caribbean nation is represented by its green, yellow, and black colors. Always a good feeling color scheme. Who couldn't love a flag with its centerpiece a starry, circled parrot regally perched on a branch? Laid back, tropical coolness at its best.






6) ALBANIA
---In perhaps stark contrast to the Dominica flag, I love the Albanian flag for its simple, imperial double-headed eagle design. A bit dragon-like and Dark Age, this flag evokes strong feelings of small banded clans in constant historical struggle against its neighbors in a race for independence and freedom from subservience. Red and black is a great and powerful color combination.






FORMER SOVIET, MOSTLY ISLAMIC, ALL WORLD FLAG DESIGN




tie 5,4,3) TURKMENISTAN, KAZAKHSTAN, UZBEKISTAN









---These breakaway former Soviet republics have similar themes but vastly different flags. I love the Islamic crescent moon motif in any flag and two of these have that in different forms. All of these have really nice color schemes and unique, differing features. Could be excellent rugs or one could revel in loving a obscure culture and flags.


















THE TWO BEASTS OF GREATNESS



2) BHUTAN
---This small Buddhist country smartly uses a dragon on their flag, sure to earn top honors on any list I would make. Even though the dragon appears to be teetering on apples in some strange balancing ritual I can't praise this cool flag enough. Most assuredly the orange and yellow color scheme will win me over anytime but when you add a mythical being into representation of actual people living in this age...truly wonderful!





1) UGANDA
---Quite simply, the greatest flag anyone has ever created. I love the twice repeated triple bar pattern. The colors are great and moving and nobody else uses this pattern in full. The reason this flag earns top billing is probably evident if you examine other flags in the top ten. It absolutely works when a country puts some sort of animal or mythical being in their flag. It changes the monotonous bar and stripe color boringness into something completely unique and eye-catching. So to the colorful and whimsical Ugandans (Idi Amin not withstanding) putting a ROOSTER (!) smack dab in the middle of your flag has earned you the NUMBER ONE FLAG IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!