Telling Look-Alike Flags Apart
The first few dozen flags are easy. Then the similar ones start to blur together. This guide follows the twelve groups in the Look-alikes practice mode and shows where to look in each. Click any flag to open that country's page.
Three things to check first
Most look-alikes separate if you check these in order.
- Is there an emblem? Identical stripes often differ by a star or a coat of arms on one flag.
- What order are the colors in? The same three colors in a different order make a different country.
- What about shade and proportions? Use these only when the first two fail. These are the hardest cases.
Nordic crosses
All of these crosses sit toward the hoist. Check the field color first, then whether the cross has a border.
| Country | Field | Cross |
|---|---|---|
| Denmark | Red | White |
| Norway | Red | Blue, white border |
| Iceland | Blue | Red, white border |
| Sweden | Blue | Yellow |
| Finland | White | Blue |
| Faroe Islands | White | Red, blue border |
| Åland | Blue | Red, yellow border |
Norway and Iceland swap red and blue. Learn those two and the rest fall into place.
Pan-Arab colors
These flags draw on red, white, green and black. Look first for a triangle or a vertical band.
- Egypt, Iraq, Yemen: all red, white and black stripes. A gold eagle in the center means Egypt, green Arabic script means Iraq, and nothing at all means Yemen.
- Sudan: the same stripes with a green triangle at the hoist.
- Syria: green, white and black stripes with three red stars.
- Jordan and Palestine: black, white and green stripes with a red triangle at the hoist. A white star in the triangle means Jordan; no star means Palestine.
- Kuwait: green, white and red stripes with a black trapezoid at the hoist.
- United Arab Emirates: a red vertical band at the hoist, then green, white and black stripes.
- Libya: red, black and green stripes, with the black widest and holding a white crescent and star.
Pan-African colors
These flags use green, yellow and red. On the vertical tricolors, the order and the star are the key.
| Country | From the hoist | Emblem |
|---|---|---|
| Mali | Green, yellow, red | None |
| Guinea | Red, yellow, green | None |
| Senegal | Green, yellow, red | Green star in the center |
| Cameroon | Green, red, yellow | Yellow star in the center |
Mali and Guinea are mirror images. Senegal is Mali with a star added.
The rest separate by shape. Ghana has a black star on its horizontal stripes, Ethiopia a blue disc with a star, and Burkina Faso two horizontal bands of red and green with a yellow star. Benin has a green vertical band at the hoist, Togo five horizontal stripes and a red square, the Republic of the Congo a yellow diagonal, and Guinea-Bissau a red vertical band with a black star.
Slavic tricolors
Combinations of white, blue and red. Check the order and any shield.
- Russia: white, blue, red from the top, with no emblem.
- Slovakia: the same order with a large shield toward the hoist.
- Slovenia: the same order with a small shield in the upper corner.
- Serbia: reversed to red, blue, white, with a coat of arms.
- Croatia: red, white, blue with a checkered shield in the center.
- Czechia: white over red with a blue triangle at the hoist.
- Bulgaria: white, green, red, with no blue at all.
Horizontal tricolors
Different colors make these easy, but a few pairs share a palette.
- Netherlands and Luxembourg: both red, white and blue. Luxembourg's blue is a much lighter sky blue.
- Hungary and Iran: Hungary is red, white, green with no emblem. Iran reverses the order and adds a central emblem and script along the band edges.
- Austria and Latvia: both have a white band between two red ones. Latvia's color is a darker maroon and its white band is narrower.
- Gabon and Sierra Leone: Gabon is green, yellow, blue; Sierra Leone is green, white, blue.
- Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia: yellow, green, red; blue, black, white; and red, blue, orange.
Vertical tricolors
Read from the hoist.
- Ireland and Côte d'Ivoire: the same colors in reverse. Ireland has green at the hoist; Côte d'Ivoire has orange.
- Italy and Mexico: both green, white, red, but Mexico has an eagle emblem in the center.
- France: blue, white, red.
- Belgium: black, yellow, red. These are Germany's colors, in vertical stripes.
- Peru: red, white, red.
- Moldova and Andorra: blue, yellow and red with an emblem. Moldova's is an eagle; Andorra's is a shield divided into four.
- Romania and Chad: with no emblem to help, you have to go by shade. In this site's images Chad's blue is darker. See nearly identical flags below.
Star and crescent
Check the field color and where the crescent sits.
- Türkiye and Tunisia: both red. Tunisia has a white disc in the center, with a red crescent and star inside it.
- Pakistan: a green field with a white vertical band at the hoist.
- Algeria: split vertically into green and white, with a red crescent and star in the center.
- Mauritania: a green field with a yellow crescent and star, and red bands at top and bottom.
- Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan: both start with a blue stripe. Azerbaijan is blue, red, green with the crescent in the center. Uzbekistan is blue, white, green with the crescent at upper left.
- Turkmenistan: a green field with a vertical band of carpet patterns near the hoist.
- Malaysia and Singapore: Malaysia has red and white stripes with a blue canton. Singapore is simply red over white.
- Comoros: four horizontal stripes with a green triangle at the hoist.
Union Jack family
The Union Jack in the corner is the same, so look at everything else.
- Australia and New Zealand: all of Australia's stars are white, with an extra large star beneath the Union Jack. New Zealand's are red with a white border, and there are only four.
- Fiji and Tuvalu: both on a light blue field. Fiji has a shield; Tuvalu has nine yellow stars.
- Cook Islands: a dark blue field with a ring of white stars.
- Niue: a yellow field.
Blue and white
Three Central American flags cause most of the trouble here. All are blue, white, blue stripes.
- Honduras: five blue stars in the center.
- El Salvador: a darker blue, with an emblem inside a green wreath.
- Nicaragua: a lighter blue, with a triangle inside a ring of gold lettering.
- Guatemala: the stripes are vertical, which settles it.
- Argentina and Uruguay: both have a sun. Argentina has three stripes with the sun in the center. Uruguay has nine stripes with the sun at upper left.
- Greece: nine stripes with a white cross at upper left.
- Israel: a Star of David between two blue stripes.
Red and white
The simplest designs, and for that reason the most confusing.
- Indonesia and Monaco: both red over white. Indonesia sets 2:3 by law.[1] Monaco is often listed at 4:5, closer to a square, but 2:3 is also reported in practice,[2] and its legal text states no ratio.[3] The images on this site use 4:5.
- Poland: white over red, the two above turned upside down.
- Singapore: a white crescent and five stars on the red half.
- Bahrain and Qatar: both have a serrated edge. Bahrain has five points and a bright red. Qatar has nine points, a maroon color and a much longer shape.
- Malta: white and red split vertically, with a small cross at upper left.
Miranda tricolors
Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela run yellow, blue, red.
- Colombia: yellow fills the top half, and there is no emblem.
- Ecuador: divided like Colombia, with a coat of arms in the center.
- Venezuela: three equal stripes, with an arc of eight white stars on the blue.
- Bolivia: red, yellow, green, so both the order and the colors differ. Its similar stripes put it in this practice group.
Suns and circles
Check the field color and where the disc sits.
- Japan: a red disc in the center of a white field.
- Bangladesh: a red disc on green, set slightly toward the hoist.
- Palau: a yellow disc on light blue, also set toward the hoist.
- Laos: a white disc on the blue band of red, blue, red stripes.
- Greenland: a field split into red and white, with a disc whose colors are split the opposite way.
Nearly identical flags
A few pairs share both pattern and order, so the design alone barely separates them.
- Romania and Chad: in this site's images, the blue is the most visible difference. Our article on near-identical flags explains how that happened.
- Indonesia and Monaco: in this site's images the proportions differ (2:3 against 4:5), and Indonesia's red is brighter.
Some territories use exactly the same flag as their parent state: France and Saint Martin, Norway with Bouvet Island and with Svalbard and Jan Mayen, the United States and the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, Australia and Heard and McDonald Islands. The game never offers these as options against each other.
Sources
Read next
- How to Play: Rules for Every Mode
Time limits, scoring and ranking rules for every Flag Master mode, including Live Ranked, Survival, Flag Route and Blank Atlas.
- We Counted the Pixels in 193 National Flags
We measured the flags of all 193 UN members pixel by pixel: the most common colors, the colors that cover the most area, and the flags with the most colors.
This page was drafted with AI (Claude). Its design descriptions were checked against the site's flag images and its ratios against the sources below, and the site owner read it before publication. Found a mistake? Please write to us and include a source: Contact