A national flag is a flag that represents and symbolizes a country. 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 stars, stripes, and crosses, 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 to represent languages.
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, or the design similarity may be a coincidence.
Additionally, the Union Jack features in many territorial and sub-national flags. These are often Red Ensigns (e.g., Bermuda) or Blue Ensigns (e.g., New South Wales and Anguilla). A small number have backgrounds of other colors (e.g. British Antarctic Territory and Niue) or a unique pattern in the field (e.g. British Indian Ocean Territory and Hawaii). A small number put the Union Jack somewhere other than the canton (e.g. British Columbia). Unofficial flags, such as Ross Dependency also use it.
Historically
Historically
Most common aspect ratio is 2:3, followed by 1:2.
The following flags have a distinctive aspect ratio:
A dependent territory, dependent area, or dependency is a territory that does not possess full political independence or sovereignty as a sovereign state and remains politically outside the controlling state's integral area. As such a dependent territory includes a range of non-integrated not fully to non-independent territory types, from associated states to non-self-governing territories.
Each entry below presents a list of topics about a specific nation or state (country), followed by a link to the main article for that country. Entries for nations are in bold type, while those for subnational entities are in normal (unbolded) type.
A unitary state is a sovereign state governed as a single entity in which the central government is the supreme authority. The central government may create or abolish administrative divisions. Such units exercise only the powers that the central government chooses to delegate. Although political power may be delegated through devolution to regional or local governments by statute, the central government may override the decisions of devolved governments, curtail their powers, or expand their powers. Unitary states in its modern concept originated in France; in the aftermath of the Hundred Years' War, national feelings that emerged from the war unified France. The Hundred Years' War accelerated the process of transforming France from a feudal monarchy to a unitary state. The French then later spread unitary states by conquests, throughout Europe during and after the Napoleonic Wars, and to the world through the vast French colonial empire.
An autonomous administrative division is a subnational administrative division or internal territory of a sovereign state that has a degree of autonomy—self-governance—under the national government. Autonomous areas are distinct from the constituent units of a federation in that they possess unique powers for their given circumstances. Typically, it is either geographically distinct from the rest of the state or populated by a national minority, which may exercise home rule. Decentralization of self-governing powers and functions to such divisions is a way for a national government to try to increase democratic participation or administrative efficiency or to defuse internal conflicts. States that include autonomous areas may be federacies, federations, or confederations. Autonomous areas can be divided into territorial autonomies, subregional territorial autonomies, and local autonomies.
A federacy is a form of government where one or several substate units enjoy considerably more independence than the majority of the substate units. To some extent, such an arrangement can be considered to be similar to asymmetric federalism.
This is a list of lists on the cities of present-day nations, states and dependencies. Countries are listed in bold under their respective pages, whereas territories and dependencies are not. Disputed and unrecognized countries are italicized.
This is a list of articles holding galleries of maps of present-day countries and dependencies. The list includes all countries listed in the List of countries, the French overseas departments, the Spanish and Portuguese overseas regions and inhabited overseas dependencies.
This is a list of articles covering the history of present-day nations, states, and dependencies. Countries are listed in bold under their respective pages, whereas territories and dependencies are not. Disputed and unrecognized countries are italicized.
This is a list of articles covering the archaeology of present-day nations, states, and dependencies. Countries are listed in bold under their respective pages, whereas territories and dependencies are not. Disputed and unrecognized countries are italicized.