How to draw the flag of the United Kingdom

The flag of the United Kingdom overlays three crosses on a navy blue field: the broad white saltire of Scotland, the narrower red saltire of Ireland set off-centre within it, and the red cross of St George on a white border over the top. Below is how to construct it step by step, with the measurements written as fractions so they work at any size — on paper, on a whiteboard or in an art program. If you would rather test yourself first, you can draw it from memory and get scored.

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Step by step

  1. Start with a rectangle in the proportions 2:1. If you are working on paper, 20 cm wide by 10 cm tall is a convenient size — every measurement below is given as a fraction, so any size works as long as the shape is right.
  2. Fill the whole rectangle with navy blue (#012169).
  3. Draw a white diagonal cross corner to corner, 20% of the height wide.
  4. Add a white rectangle starting 0% across and 33% down, 100% of the width by 33% of the height.
  5. Add a white rectangle starting 33% across and 0% down, 17% of the width by 100% of the height.
  6. Add a red rectangle starting 0% across and 40% down, 100% of the width by 20% of the height.
  7. Add a red rectangle starting 40% across and 0% down, 10% of the width by 100% of the height.

The colours

These are the shades used in the reference drawing. Official specifications are usually given in Pantone; the hex values below are the closest common screen equivalents.

The mistakes people make

One more thing worth knowing: the United Kingdom belongs to the Union Jack cantons. The canton is identical; the star arrangement in the fly is what you are actually being tested on. If you are drawing several flags, do the ones in this group back to back — the differences stick far better that way.

Test yourself

Reading how a flag is built and being able to reproduce it from memory are different skills, and the gap between them is bigger than most people expect. Draw the flag of the United Kingdom from memory and the game will score how close you got, or try today's flag if you want to be surprised.

Other flags to draw