Texas, don’t get cocky about your flag being in the middle, because this is actually Chile’s
flag.
Ever noticed how two completely different countries can share the exact same flag?
More than similar color schemes, I mean countries where the flags are next to indistinguishable,
like Chad and Romania, or Ireland and Côte d’Ivoire, and we can’t forget Australia
and New Zealand, because New Zealand actually tried to do something about it.
Let’s take a look at three examples.
Chad and Romania: Chad and Romania (and also Andorra) have a
tricolor flag of three vertical stripes in blue, yellow and red, but Chad’s blue is
half a shade darker (this is a Romanian flag, by the way), so I guess this doesn’t count,
okay, next group.
Kidding, of course.
Romania and Chad are completely different countries, in fact, though relations were
established in 1969, there is no Chadian embassy in Bucharest, nor a Romanian embassy in N’Djamena.
Romania has used the design since 1848, back when it was still Wallachia, and Chad has
used it since 1960.
For Romania, the tricolor is historically and culturally significant (and Moldova certainly
agrees), while Chad’s flag is basically a combination of the French tricolor and the
pan-African colors.
Andorra’s flag kind of does the same, but with the yellow and red representing Spain.
The funny thing is that they were originally going to go with green, yellow and red, but
they didn’t want to get confused with Mali.
Kind of like how Washington state was originally going to be called Columbia, but they changed
it, so it wouldn’t be confused with Washington DC.
Chile and Texas: Let me tell you a short story, a few weeks
ago, I sent out something on Snapchat (add me, by the way, @khanubis) with something
relating to Texas, and you can put flag emojis on snaps, but there are no US state flag emojis
(which is probably for the best), so I put in the flag of Chile (I should mention I quickly
posted a follow-up snap clarifying I knew which flag is which).
Actually, I’m not the only one who has done this, so many people do it that Texas State
Representative Tom Oliverson told people to, you know, not do that.
The Lone Star Flag for the Lone Star State is the one whose entire hoist edge is blue,
whereas Chile’s only has it in the canton.
Another layer of confusion is how Chile’s flag is known as the “estrella solitaria”,
which means “lone star”.
The thing is, Chile’s flag and motto are older than Texas’, Chile adopted la estrella
solitaria in 1817, Texas was a state of Mexico (Tejas) until 1836.
No one said anything about Texas being a copycat, so I’ll just leave you with that.
Monaco, Indonesia and Poland: Monaco and Indonesia have a bi-color flag
of red at the top and white on the bottom, and Poland has a similar design, but upside-down,
and it’s reversed anyway in Polandball (so many people commented
on that).
Indonesia’s flag is slightly wider, though (this is an Indonesia flag, by the way).
Monaco and Indonesia both fly these colors for historical reasons, as Monaco’s is based
on the heraldic colors in the shield of the Monegasque princely arms, Indonesia’s references
the Majapahit empire.
This is actually probably the reason some countries have similar flags in the first
place, as some other countries can also symbolize the same colors, and it’s not too hard to
come across someone using the same design when you’re using two or three colors, or
a common design.
What would be particularly shocking is if this happened to Iran, or Maryland, or Pocatello,
ID (oh, god!).
I feel like we’re already establishing our running Flag-Phile jokes!
Thanks for watching.
If you want more, please be sure to follow me on Instagram and Twitter, both are @khanubis.
If you’re so inclined, that’s also my Snapchat.
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