Ten National Flags Went Into a Bar (Part I) Quiz

Answer:

Since its adoption in 1777 the flag of the USA has had thirteen red and white horizontal stripes, which represent its thirteen original colonies. The flag initially also had thirteen stars on a blue background in its top left corner. As each additional state entered the Union, another star was added to the flag, and it has had fifty since 1960. The UK flag, or Union Jack, consists of the red on white cross of England's St George over the red on white saltire (diagonal cross) of Ireland's St Patrick, which in turn is on top of the white on blue saltire of Scotland's St Andrew. This flag was adopted under the 1801 Act of Union to replace its predecessor, created in 1606, which had just the crosses of St George and St Andrew.

The current South African flag was adopted in 1994 but its design and especially its colours were influenced by previous flags. At least one of these earlier flags had contained red, blue, white and green, and black and gold were added for the 1994 flag. On the current flag's left-hand side is a triangle which leads across into a Y shape, whose tail goes between two broad stripes of other colours to the flag's right-hand side. The current French flag was adopted as its national one in 1794 and it has a blue vertical stripe on its left, a white stripe in the middle and a red one on the right. This flag was a departure from the previous French royal flag but blue and red had been used on the Parisian coat of arms and white was added to form the French tricolour.

Both the current Irish and Ivory Coast flags are also tricolours and the Irish flag has, from left to right, vertical stripes of green, white and orange while the flag of the Ivory Coast has the same colours but in reverse order. It is believed the Irish flag was first used by Irish nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century, although it was only adopted as a national flag in 1922. The green and orange colours were intended to represent Roman Catholics and Protestants respectively while the white signified a permanent truce between the two. The Ivory Coast tricolour was adopted in 1960 when the country became independent and the meaning of the colours was then given as orange for national growth, white for peace and unity and green for hope for the future.

Although it was only adopted as Israel's national flag in 1948 after the country became independent, the Israeli flag began as a symbol of the Zionist Movement in the late nineteenth century. Towards the top and the bottom of the flag a blue horizontal stripe extends across the white background while a blue six-pointed star is in the middle of the flag. This star, known as the Star of David, has been in existence for many centuries and has been used as a symbol by Jewish people for a few hundred years.

In several, but not all, respects the flags of Australia and New Zealand are alike. Both have a dark blue background with a Union Jack in the top left corner. Both have stars representing the Southern Cross on their right hand sides, but the Australian flag shows five stars and the New Zealand flag shows four. In addition, underneath the Union Jack on the Australian flag is a larger Commonwealth Star having seven points, which represent its six states and Papua New Guinea. This flag was first adopted in a slightly different form in 1901 and the current version has been in use since 1908. The New Zealand flag, again in a slightly different form, was initially used on ships in 1869 then in 1902 the current design was chosen to be the country's national flag.

The flag of China has a red background on which a large yellow star is displayed in the top left-hand area and is semi-surrounded by four smaller stars. This flag was chosen as the winning one in a competition to design a new national flag and it was officially adopted in 1949. As stated at that time, the red background was intended to represent the Communist Revolution while the large star symbolised the Communist Party and the four smaller stars represented social classes.