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Ratios of flags

Summary of Ratios of Flags
Vertical Proportions of Flags
Why keeping right proportions?

Summary of Ratios of Flags

My "holy book" (Whitney Smith, Flags through the ages and across the world) quotes for the United States' flags a 10:19 ratio, really closer to the 1:2 traditional ratio of the British flags, from which the "Star Spangled Banner" comes from.
In fact there are three main "threads" in the world of flags:

British flags have a 1:2 ratio (United Kingdom, Australia, Bahamas, Canada, Ireland and with the little correction of 10:19 United States and ofcourse Liberia);

French flags have a 2:3 ratio (France, Italy, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Algery, Spain and the most of Latin-American flags);

German flags have a 3:5 ratio;

moreover some nations have unusual ratios, as Denmark (28:37) or Belgium (13:15).

alessio bragadini

Vertiacal Proportions of Flags

The proportions of vertical stripes on French naval flag are 30:33:37, to enable good visual efect of flag when flying.
Portugal, too obviously, have off-centered pattern and I supose scandinavian cross flags have same reason of vertical bar shifted right.

zeljko heimer 23-SEP-1995

Bangladesh, North Korea, Nauru, Turkey and the Japanese Ensign all shift their designs to the hoist. Whitney Smith's book mentions that Bangladesh does this so that the flag will look proper while flying. There is no reason given for the others and in the case of Nauru especially I suspect that the star is toward the hoist for some other reason.

nathan augustine 27-SEP-1995

Why keeping right proportions?

Since we are talking about flag proportions, I was wondering if said proportions are ever symbolic in and of themselves, or always more or less arbitrary. (Let's leave oddballs like Nepal an Qatar out for the moment.) This question arises from the question of why it's so important to keep the proportions right. For instance, Ron pointed out that much of the errors are caused by standardizations of the flag manufacturing process. Earlier, someone said that all the flags of the former Soviet Union kept to the proportions of the old Hammer and Sickle. Similarly, looking at my flag chart, all the flags of the former Yugoslavia seem to be more or less the same proportions. I'm willing to bet that this is a result less of nostalgia for the old days and more of the fact that it was easier to leave the settings on the flag-making machines as is....

Thus, I ask again, why is it important to keep proportions straight? Colors and symbols have meanings which it would wrong to alter, but if proportions are chosen arbitrarily...

josh fruhlinger 29-JAN-1996

One pair of flags that differ only in their proportions are those of Indonesia (2:3) and Monaco (4:5). Of course, I don't know whether the proportions have significance in themselves, but they have significance in relation to each other in that they are the only way to distinguish the two flags.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a real-world situation in which these two countries' flags could be confused, though. (Shipwrecked sailors wash up on an unfamiliar shore; "What country are we in?" "Must be Indonesia -- look at that flag." "Yes, an that big building up there must be the famous Djakarta Casino!")

bruce tindall 29-JAN-1996