How to draw a flag

Every guide here gives the construction of one flag: its proportions, where each division falls, the colours, and the specific ways people get it wrong. The measurements are written as fractions of the flag's height or width, so they work at any size — a sheet of A4, a poster, or a canvas in a drawing app.

Start with the proportions, not the picture

The single most common reason a hand-drawn flag looks wrong is that the rectangle is the wrong shape. Most national flags are 3:2 or 2:1, but there are outliers in both directions — Switzerland is square, Denmark is close to 4:3, the United States is an unusually wide 19:10. Get the outline right before anything goes inside it, because every other measurement is a fraction of it.

The second most common problem is drawing details before blocks. Flags are built in layers: field, then bands, then the emblem. Working in that order means you never have to paint around something you have already drawn.

Guides by country

• the United States19:10
• the United Kingdom2:1
• India3:2 · has an emblem
• Brazil10:7 · has an emblem
• Mexico4:3 · has an emblem
• Japan3:2
• Canada2:1
• Germany5:3
• France3:2
• Italy3:2
• Spain3:2 · has an emblem
• South Korea3:2 · has an emblem
• Australia2:1
• Indonesia3:2
• Turkey3:2
• Nigeria2:1
• the Philippines2:1 · has an emblem
• Portugal3:2 · has an emblem
• Argentina8:5

Or test yourself instead

If you would rather find out what you already know, the game gives you a country name and a blank canvas and scores how close you get: today's flag, practice mode, or the look-alike flags if you want the hard ones.