Flag families are sets of flags with similarities in their design, often based on a shared history, culture, or influence. Families listed here do not include flags with coincidental similarities. Flags may be in multiple flag families. Only twelve current national flags existed before the nineteenth century, when large-scale flag use began. Seven of these flags (Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States) are the inspiration for more than 130 current national flags and ensigns.
Christian cross
A Christian cross flag is any flag with a cross or crosses as a central element of its design (as opposed to flags like those of Malta and Serbia, which use crosses as smaller embellishments). It is the oldest flag family. The first flag purported to have such a cross was the flag of Portugal, beginning in around 1100. The flag design became the most common design for merchant ships across Europe for several centuries. Flags in this family use different types of crosses, including the Latin cross (†), the Greek cross (✚), the Jerusalem cross, the saltire (✖), and the Maltese cross (✠) — the Maltese cross does not appear on Malta's national flag, only its civil ensign.
Nordic cross
Flags in the Nordic cross family feature crosses stretching the width and length of the flag, with the center offset to hoist. The cross design represents Christianity, and was first seen in the Dannebrog, the national flag of Denmark since the 14th century. The other Nordic countries adopted national flags of the same design later on. Though the design is strongly associated with Nordic countries, cities and territories outside the region use this design. Greenland is the only Nordic region that does not use the Nordic cross.
Crescent
Flags with crescents are recorded as being used in the region of Middle East and North Africa as early as the 14th century. These designs often featured a white crescent open toward the top on a solid-colored field. During the 19th century when national flags became common, the Ottoman Empire was the only Muslim state considered a world power. Its flag popularized the crescent design for other Muslim nations when they later adopted flags. Most Muslim crescent flags also have one or more stars near or within the circle formed by the crescent. The crescent appears on several flags of non-Muslim subnations and municipals. These crescent flags have symbolism unrelated to Islam.
British Ensign
The British Ensign family is composed of flags with the Union Jack in the canton. The Union Flag adopted in 1606 combined the Saint George's Cross of England and the St Andrew's saltire of Scotland to form the Union Flag. The St Patrick's saltire was superimposed on the flag in 1801. In the mid-19th century, the British government declared the white ensign for use exclusively by the Royal Navy, a blue ensign for all vessels "belonging to, or permanently in, the service of the Colonies", and a red ensign for non-government vessels. As the British Empire expanded, so too did the use of variations of the ensigns, especially the blue ensign. Of the original fifty-three independent nations in the British Commonwealth, all but four had the Union Jack on their flag. Forty-four have removed the Union Jack from their flags.
Stars and Stripes
The stars and stripes flag family is composed of flags of alternating stripes with a field in the hoist (often the canton) charged with an emblem (often, but not always, a star or stars).
Early versions of the flag of the United States were based on the flag of the United Kingdom, with the Union Flag on the canton. Instead of a solid-colored field, they had stripes inspired by the flag of the East India Company. In 1777, the Continental Congress of the United States resolved to replace the Union Flag with thirteen stars.
The first nation to adopt a similar flag was the Hawaiian Kingdom, and many other nations wanting to express ideals of liberty and democracy followed suit.
Dutch and pan-Slavic colors
Dutch and pan-Slavic colors are a family of flags, usually with red, white, and blue stripes, inspired by the Dutch and later Russian flags. The first flag of simple stripes were the livery colors of William I, Prince of Orange, used in the mid-16th century. These stripes of orange, white, and blue became the first flag of the Netherlands. In the 17th century, the orange was replaced by red. Tsar Peter the Great personally designed a merchant flag of Russia based on the colors of the flag of the Netherlands. The Russian flag, in turn, inspired many flags of countries in the Slavic region. Most retained the white, blue and red, but Bulgaria changed the blue stripe on the flag of Russia into a green stripe symbolising liberty.
Tricolours and tribands
A tricolor is any flag following the flag of France in its design of three vertical stripes of equal width, each distinct in color. On the eve of the French Revolution, 13 July 1789, red and blue cockades were given to the militia of Paris. Soon afterward, Louis XVI added one to his royal white cockade. These colors, arranged as stripes, became the flag of France in 1794. In this way, vertical tribands of three colors became associated with movements for republicanism and were adopted by many nations transitioning to republican governance, although their use was never exclusive to such states. Unlike tricolour, the triband design may contain two identical colors, such as flags of Nigeria and Peru.
A number of triband flags have a central band that is exactly twice the width of others, a design known as Spanish fess (horizontal) or Canadian pale (vertical). On some flags, this is not the central band, such as for Colombia or Rwanda.
Pan-African colors
Flags in the pan-African family use a combination of some or all of the colors red, yellow, green, and black. Some pan-African flags also have white and, less commonly, blue, but these are not considered pan-African colors. The designs of flags in this family vary considerably. The colors red, yellow, and green became associated with pan-African colors through the Ethiopian flag. Black was later added by Marcus Garvey, an activist and organizer for the first black unification movement in the United States. Inspired by the pan-African colors' growing association with post-colonial independence, many countries in the Caribbean and the Guianas with large populations in the African diaspora also adopted pan-African colors.
Ethiopian flag family
The colors green, yellow, and red have been historically important in Ethiopia since the early 17th century. Along with Liberia, Ethiopia was the only currently existing nation to avoid European colonization during the scramble for Africa. Its flag, therefore, was the inspiration for many countries that gained independence after colonization. The modern flags of Bolivia, Lithuania, and Myanmar also use these three colors, but their origins are unrelated to the Ethiopian flag.
Marcus Garvey and Theodosia Okoh families
The Jamaican pan-Africanist leader Marcus Garvey inspired two independent sets of national African flags. In 1917, he proposed a red, black, and green flag for his organization, known as the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. According to Garvey:
These three decorative colors of Marcus Garvey were the inspiration behind the flag of Kenya, the flag of Malawi, the Flag of South Sudan and other historic flags such as the flag of Biafra. Independently, Marcus Garvey also created the Black Star Line, a shipping company between the United States and West Africa that transported many African-Americans to Africa and vice versa. The eponymous black star of the house flag of the company later became a part of three national flags in West Africa, starting with the flag of Ghana designed by Theodosia Okoh.
Pan-Arab colors
The pan-Arab flag family is a set of flags featuring three or four of the colors red, black, white, and green. The flags have three horizontal stripes, often with an emblem in the center or an overlapping shape in the hoist. According to biographers of Muhammad, he used both flags of white and flags of black. Each color of the pan-Arab flags is associated with a caliphate of Islam. White and black flags were used by the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties respectively. Although green is often identified as the color of the Fatimid dynasty by vexillological sources, that is not correct: their dynastic color was white. Green is now considered the color of Islam. Red was the color of the Hashemites. These colors were also described by the 14th-century Iraqi poet Safi al-Din al-Hilli: "White are our deeds, black are our battles, green are our ranches, red are our swords."
In 1911, members of a Turkish literary club chose these four colors as the colors of the modern Arabic flag. The colors were combined in the flag of the Arab Revolt in 1916, and many countries adopted these colors as the colors of their national flags upon gaining independence from the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.
Pan-Iranian colors
Iran adopted a flag with green, white, and red stripes in the mid-19th century. The flag has undergone changes since, but the three stripes remain. When the newly independent republic of Tajikistan changed its flag from its former Soviet version, it chose to use the same stripes in reverse order as a nod to its close cultural ties with neighbouring Iran. The flag of Kurdistan, a geo-cultural region overlapping with Iran, uses the green-white-red stripes of the pan-Iranian flag charged with a 21-rayed golden sun that symbolizes the festival of Newroz marking the arrival of spring and the new year in Kurdish culture on the vernal equinox of 20 March.
Pan-Colombian colors
The Pan-Colombian colors family is made up of flags of countries in the South American former area of Gran Colombia. They have three horizontal stripes of yellow, blue, and red taken from the pre-discoverial coat of arms of the Columbus dynasty. Venezuelan revolutionary leader Francisco de Miranda personally designed the flag of Gran Colombia, a historic state that included modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, and parts of Brazil and Guyana. The flag of Gran Colombia had three colours signifying Hispanic America (yellow), the Atlantic Ocean (blue), and "bloody Spain" (red). Miranda attributed the inspiration for these colors to a late-night conversation with the German writer and color theorist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who is described as saying
The flag of Gran Colombia was first hoisted in 1806. It led to the current designs of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela.
Belgrano
The Belgrano flag family is composed of flags of Central and South America with blue and white stripes. In 1812, the Argentine revolutionary general Manuel Belgrano raised a flag in Rosario, Argentina, of three horizontal stripes of blue-white-blue. It was formally adopted by the Government of Argentina in 1816. Six years later, commander-general of El Salvador Manuel José Arce took the "Argentine colours of Belgrano" as a new national flag of that province, becoming the first additional flag of the family. Building on this, the flag of the Federal Republic of Central America had blue and white stripes, and all of the countries that were once part of that republic retain those stripes in some way in their flags. El Salvador and Nicaragua have also retained the triangular emblem of the former republic; the flag of Costa Rica has an additional red stripe. Argentina's and Uruguay's flags now have the Sol de Mayo.
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