Jeopardy Champ Ken Jennings Explains 10 Obscure World Flags
Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings tells us the meaning behind ten obscure world flags—including why Mozambique's flag has a rifle on it and why Nepal flies the world's only non-rectangular flag.
Some world nations celebrate peace with an olive-branch design on their flags; others boast of bravery in war by showing swords or spears. But only Mozambique really pushes the envelope by including an AK-47 assault rifle, complete with bayonet, in its national emblem. A national contest was held in 2005 to design a replacement flag without the Kalashnikov, but so far the machine gun remains.
In Kyrgyz legend, the national hero, Manas the Noble, unified the land’s 40 tribes by waving a blood-red flag. Today’s red flag still has 40 rays on its sun design, symbolizing the different tribes, but the curved lines on the sun are something else: That’s supposed to be a bird’s-eye view of a yurt, the traditional tent in which Kyrgyzstan’s nomadic peoples make their homes.
The circles and stars and triangles aren’t too unusual, but wait—what’s that yellow-and-red flame-shaped thing at left? That’s a clove of nutmeg, an important export of Grenada, once called the “Spice Island.” If you remember, raise of glass of eggnog next Christmas to the flag of Grenada.
The flag of Iran looks like your traditional tricolor—until you check out the stripes a little more closely. What appears to be a nice design-y border between each stripe is actually stylized calligraphy reading Allahu Akbar (“God is Great”) 22 times, in two rows of 11. The numerology symbolizes 11/22, the Persian-calendar equivalent of February 11, the date of the 1979 Islamic revolution against the Shah.
The world’s oldest state flag is also, if you believe the legend, the only one with a design drawn up personally by God. At the 1219 Battle of Lyndanisse, a Danish priest supposedly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat by praying for a miracle, after which this flag fell from the heavens and inspired the Danes to drive back their enemy Estonians. Today, all the Nordic flags have designs based on the Dannebrog of Denmark.
The mountainous land of Nepal boasts the world’s only nonrectangular flag, which has its origins in two separate triangular flags—one displaying the sun and the other the moon—that it once flew one atop the other. The bright crimson background is meant to capture the petals on a red rhododendron, Nepal’s national flower.
Do you like Middle Eastern carpets? Sure! We all do. Turkmenistan is world-famous for the craftsmanship of its beautiful carpets, so the stripe at left on its flag is an intricate stack of five traditional medallions used in local carpet design. It’s the world’s only flag that wears a rug.
It’s often said that beauty comes from symmetry, but Paraguay’s flag is the exception that proves the rule—the asymmetrical Shannen Doherty or Owen Wilson of world flags. In the early 19th century, Paraguay displayed the Spanish arms on one side of its flag and the Asunción arms on the other side; today it continues the tradition by displaying the state arms on one side and a treasury seal (a lion guarding “the Cap of Liberty”) on the other. It’s the only national flag with a different design on each side.
No nation sums up the tranquility of island life on its flag like the Republic of Fiji. Its idyllic coat of arms is like a montage from a TV cruise commercial: sugar cane, a palm tree, a dove of peace, a bunch of bananas. The lion on most flags is usually up on its hind legs or holding a sword or something. Not this guy! He’s just lying there, playing with a coconut. Chillin'.