Talk:National flag: Difference between revisions

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In the map caption should be an explanation that those are UN members flags, hence missing e.g. Taiwan's flag. 82.141.72.194 (talk) 13:13, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not entirely sure "national flag" is the best generic term. What about the flag of the United Nations, the state of California, etc? --hajhouse

We should have a flag article to cover flags in general. (I see you've created one already.) But national flags are a particularly important type of flag, so it makes sense to have a separate article on them. --Zundark, 2001 Nov 1

Zundark: I'm not so sure about that. Is there anything particularly unique about national flags, as opposed to flags in general, that warrant particular treatment in their article? Maybe we could have a list of national flags here, but articles about the national flags per se really belong in the same article as discussion of other types of flags -- to separate them into a separate article is to ignore the continuity and unity of the subject matter. -- SJK

I'm not sure I see exactly what you are objecting to. I think we want to be able to link directly to an article on national flags, instead of having to link to a general article on flags. The article should explain what national flags are, and provide a list of Wikipedia articles on individual national flags. I don't see that this detracts from the general article on flags, which can still discuss any flags it wants to, including national ones. The list of well-known flags that is currently here should probably be moved to flag, since whether a flag is well-known or not is independent of whether or not it is a national flag. --Zundark, 2001 Nov 1

Well, the regulations for use of national flags, for instance. Such regulations exist not only for national flags, but for subnational and supranational flags as well. And since a large part of these regulations concern matters of precedence, even the regulations for national flags cover other flags also. Which is why I'd say the regulations should be moved to Flag, and expanded to discuss regulations in respect of sub- and super-national flags also. -- SJK

Yes, that's OK. But I won't be doing it, because I don't know enough about it. --Zundark, 2001 Nov 2

Please add Uighurstan or "East Turkestan", thanks. Also Tibet and South Mongolia

I was rather hoping to see some historical info about the birth of the concept of national flags.

This article is a mess because it confuses the term nation and state. Take the case of the UK. There is a Union Jack representing the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but England, Scotland and Wales are nations in the UK which is a state and each has a national flag.

The problem is that there is an assumption that Nation and State are interchangable. This is an idea from the U.S. and French Revolutions, but to anyone who lives in a nation which pre-dates those events: Nation, State and Sovereignty are constitutionally very different things.

In the case of the Commonwealth of Nations and more specifically the United Kingdom sovereignty does not lie with the nations but with the Crown (see also British monarchy). Think of all those costume dramas about Henry VIII and you start to understand how the constitution works in the UK. Ambassadors to the UK present their credentials directly to the sovereign at the Court of St. James's not to the Government of the United Kingdom. Only Commonwealth High Commissioners present their credentials to "to the United Kingdom," rather than to the Sovereign or her Court. The Parliament of the UK is the British Peoples' Parliament (English Civil War and specifically 1649) but because of the English Restoration in 1660 the Government of the United Kingdom is Her Majesty's Government .

Although this is a wander down the archic dusty corners of the British constitution it is important because it highlights that Sovereignty, State and Nation are not the same thing. Philip Baird Shearer 09:21, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cornwall is not a nation, it is only a county. Superdantaylor 23:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's really fair to say that a national flag can usually be used by citizens of the country. The flag usually considered "the national flag" isn't necessarily allowed to be used by civilians, and the article seems to cover national flags including government/war flags/ensigns anyway. JPD (talk) 12:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would be nice to have something in here about the extent of national-flag use. In the U.S. and Canada, you see flags not just on government buildings but in school classrooms, aside office buildings and even on some private homes. Europeans seem only to get their flags out for soccer games. -- Mwalcoff 00:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Er...have you ever been to Europe? It doesn't sound that way. Come to Denmark (or Scandinavia in general), and you'll see flags everywhere.

And it's football, not "soccer"... ;o) --Michael riber jorgensen 21:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Until there is more to be said about war flags (in the sense of a distinct version of a national flag for military use on land), I don't see the justification for a separate War flag stub, and suggest that it get merged in to the "National flags on land" section here. --ScottMainwaring 15:15, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. I don't object to war flag as it is, or to merging it, but I do think it would be strange to have that level of detail here on war flags, but leave civil flag and state flag as separate articles. They currently don't have much more content than the war flag does. JPD (talk) 16:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a bit strange, but I think this just reflects prevalence in "nature" -- there are lots of civil and state flags in current use, but almost no "war flags". --ScottMainwaring 12:13, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm not saying that it would be strange to have articles for civil and state flags and not war flags (as you say, that distinction is more common, although the current articles don't really reflect that). I'm saying that it would be strange as a result of that for this article to contain a disproportionate amount of detail on war flags. JPD (talk) 11:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and expanded war flag, and removed the merge requests. --ScottMainwaring 00:25, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

oldest national flag in use today?

what about scottish flag? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.129.168.202 (talk) 09:12, August 25, 2007 (UTC)

There are several claims to that title, but at any rate the article says the Danish flag is the oldest state flag still in use, not the oldest national flag. JPD (talk) 09:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So the Danish flag is a state flag, but not a national flag? Udaller, 19:34, 29 August 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Udaller (talk • contribs)

I said that the article did not claim that the Dannebrog is the oldest national flag. How in the world does that imply it is not a national flag? JPD (talk) 11:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In response to a friend's query I discovered, a few weeks ago, that Denmark's flag was the oldest *state* flag, but Catalonia's was an older *national* flag. Returning to Flag article a week later, I discovered that reference to Catalonia's flag had been deleted!!!!

If my vote counts, I vote that "national flag" includes flags like Scotland's and Catalonia's but that's not the key point. Perhaps there's a better term for "national flag". BUT WHY IN THE NAME OF TARNATION did any idiot feel that it was appropriate to COMPLETELEY DELETE interesting and useful information about such flags just because they quibbled with the term "national flag"???????

Jamesdowallen 06:13, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There may be some debate about what counts as a "national" flag, and which flag is actually oldest, and quite possibly the article should mention the claims of both Scotland and Catalonia to the oldest national flag, if there are reliable sources. However, the lead image should not be used as a battleground for these claims, with captions making simplistic statements. It is meant to illustrate the concept of a national flag and could easily be chosen by criteria other than age. There is no logical reason to add images of all the flags with similar claims to fame in the intro. If you look at the history, you will see that this is why the "information" was removed, not the term "national flag". JPD (talk) 11:39, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is a link on this article, under the 'see also' section entitled 'Gallery of country flags'. Naively, I expected it to link to a gallery of country flags. However, it links to a Gallery of sovereign-state flags. Why? What's wrong with showing the flags of all countries? Are they a secret? :) (Dai caregos (talk) 16:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC)).[reply]

Of course not. There are links for non-sovereign countries too: Flags of active autonomist and secessionist movements and Flags of formerly independent states. Also added Gallery of dependent territory flags, and removed the link to the redirected page. -- Jao (talk) 16:23, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is fairly clear that flags of non-sovereign nations can be and are also called "national flags". The question, is how should this article deal with that fact. JPD (talk) 23:31, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article on Nation clearly is not limited to sovereign nations only, so this one shouldn't be either. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:35, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am fine with that, though let us look at the example of Quebec. Now, the Quebecois people have been recognized as a nation by the Canadian parliament. The province of Quebec (which is the goegraphical region that hold the Quebecois, but also a number of other peoples, say anglo Quebeckers etc) has a flag as all Canadian provinces do. Officially, this is the flag of QUebec, but would that be also considered the flag of the Quebecois nation? Things are a little muddy here, for me anyway. Dbrodbeck (talk) 23:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article should definitely not imply that the term "national flag" is limited to sovereign nations only. However, does this article exist, because the phrase "national flag" exists, or because it discusses things that are true of flags of sovereign states and not of flags in general? I believe the WP:POINT of the page move was that the article currently does not ostensibly or actually deal with the broader category of national flags, or even acknowledge them. I'm not sure what is the best way to do this while actually retaining the information not at flag. JPD (talk) 00:09, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What does the term 'national flag' mean I guess is the question. Is the USA a 'nation'? (I picked that one because it is pretty multicultural, some might say multinational). Dbrodbeck (talk) 00:40, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The usage of "national flag" to mean things like the Stars and Stripes is much more clear than "nation" to mean the USA. Apart from that, I don't think the only question is what does "national flag" mean. This is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary, and while the general meaning of terms must be at the very least acknowledged, articles with a coherent scope are better than those which follow all the meanings of a phrase. JPD (talk) 02:08, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I should not have said 'the' question, probably 'an important' question. Dbrodbeck (talk) 02:49, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I would create a second article called National flag (ethnicity) or some such for the uses such as flags for groups of people such as teh Quebecois. This page dispite its name clearly is about flags of countries. -Djsasso (talk) 14:27, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I want to add a section on different proportions used, any objections? —Preceding unsigned comment added by N40798 (talk • contribs) 19:55, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Currently the article introduces this particular subject with the line "Also, Australia and New Zealand share a very similar flag...", and continues with this theme for four sentences. How do we measure the similarity of flags? If it is by the number of differences (changes required to transform on into t'other), then those two flags have some five (or so) differences (number of stars, star colors and positions). By comparison many European flags differ for the large part by only one stripe, one color, or orientation (compare Luxemburg, Russia, Romania, France, Austria, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, etc.). Would someone be able to clarify why the Australian/New Zealand flags are considered to be "very similar", while the European flags are not? Is this a case of the writers own exposure to (and hence being able to distinguish between) certain flags and their lack of knowledge of other flags, without justifying that the flags are objectively and in themselves more similar than other national flags? The four sentences written on the flags of these two countries seems to belittle the large number of much more similar European flags. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.15.119 (talk) 17:38, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]