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Natural Earth 1:50m · 55 countries
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Flags of Africa Quiz

The flags of Africa's fifty-four countries and Western Sahara on a flat map. Click a country or drag the flag onto it: three tries per flag, then the map shows the answer. Three names, three hints and three skips are free for the round.

Drag the flag onto a country, or click the country. Name shows the country the flag belongs to, Hint opens all three facts about it; after three misses, or Skip, the map places it for you. Scroll or pinch to zoom in.

All 55 countries and their capitals, the flags explained, more maps ↓

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Flags of Africa Quiz

Drag every African flag onto its country on a flat map of Africa, three tries each. No labels.

Ethiopia's colours and where they went

Green, yellow and red were Ethiopia's colours before any other African state had a flag of its own, and Ethiopia's record as the one country on the continent never colonised gave them a meaning wider than one nation. When Ghana became the first sub-Saharan colony to win independence, in 1957, it took the three as horizontal bands with a black star in the middle, borrowed from Marcus Garvey's Black Star Line. Independence then carried the colours across West Africa: Guinea and Mali fly them as vertical bands, Senegal is Mali with a green star, Cameroon puts a yellow star on its red centre, Benin stands a green band beside yellow over red, Togo runs green and yellow stripes under a red canton, and Burkina Faso lays red over green with a star between.

A second family uses black, red and green, the colours of Garvey's own movement: Kenya sets them behind a Maasai shield with crossed spears, Malawi raises a red sun in its black band, South Sudan adds white edges and a blue triangle with a gold star. North of the Sahara the pan-Arab red, white and black of Egypt and Sudan take over, and a crescent marks Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, Libya and Comoros.

Flags that settle the question at a glance

South Africa's six colours meet in a sideways Y, adopted in 1994 for the first democratic election and read as separate paths joining into one. Mozambique's is the only national flag with a modern rifle: an AK-47 crossed with a hoe over an open book, on a yellow star in a red triangle. Zimbabwe carries the Zimbabwe Bird, a soapstone carving from the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, on a white triangle backed by a red star. Uganda's white disc holds a grey crowned crane, and Lesotho's blue, white and green a black mokorotlo, the conical straw hat of the Basotho. eSwatini lays a black and white oxhide shield across two spears and a staff. Angola's yellow machete, half cogwheel and star on red over black were modelled on the hammer and sickle. Seychelles fans five bands out of its lower hoist corner, Cabo Verde rings ten stars for its ten islands, and Comoros counts four islands in four stripes and four stars, Mayotte among them.

Look-alikes and the detail that separates them

The vertical tricolours cause the most trouble. Guinea is red, yellow, green from the hoist and Mali is its mirror image; Senegal is Mali with a green star; Cameroon has red in the middle with a yellow star on it; Chad begins with blue. Benin and Madagascar share one layout, a vertical band at the hoist and two horizontal bands at the fly: Benin's band is green with yellow over red, Madagascar's is white with red over green.

Four flags run a band diagonally from the lower hoist to the upper fly: Tanzania's is black with yellow edges between green and blue, Congo's is yellow between green and red, Namibia's is red with white edges between blue and green, with a sun in the corner, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo's is red with yellow edges on sky blue, with a star in the corner. Kenya, Malawi and South Sudan are all black, red and green: the shield, the sun and the blue triangle tell them apart. Togo and Liberia both put one white star in a canton over stripes, but Liberia's eleven are red and white under blue, on the pattern of the United States, and Togo's five are green and yellow under red.

Somaliland and Western Sahara

Two shapes on the map are not ordinary countries. Somaliland, in the north of Somalia, declared independence in 1991 and has a flag of its own but no ISO code, so it is drawn and takes no card. Western Sahara is in the deck under the flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic: black, white and green with a red hoist triangle, the Palestinian layout, plus a red crescent and star.

All 55 countries and their capitals

55 countries are on this map, listed in alphabetical order with their capitals, area, population and one thing worth knowing about each — the same card Learning opens on the globe. Somaliland is drawn too but takes no flag.

  1. AlgeriaAlgiers2,381,741 km² · 46.8 million peopleThe largest country in Africa; the Sahara covers more than four fifths of it.
  2. AngolaLuanda1,246,700 km² · 37.9 million peopleLuanda's Portuguese street names come from four centuries as a Portuguese colony, until 1975.
  3. BeninPorto-Novo112,622 km² · 14.5 million peopleBirthplace of Vodun (voodoo), still an official religion here.
  4. BotswanaGaborone582,000 km² · 2.5 million peopleHolds about a third of Africa's elephants, most of them in and around the Okavango Delta.
  5. Burkina FasoOuagadougou272,967 km² · 23.6 million peopleIts name means 'land of upright people'; hosts Africa's biggest film festival, FESPACO.
  6. BurundiGitega27,834 km² · 13.7 million peopleGitega replaced Bujumbura as the political capital in 2019.
  7. Cabo VerdePraia4,033 km² · 524,000 peopleTen volcanic Atlantic islands, uninhabited until the Portuguese arrived in 1456.
  8. CameroonYaoundé475,442 km² · 29.1 million peopleCalled 'Africa in miniature' for its mix of coast, rainforest, savanna and mountains.
  9. Central African RepublicBangui622,984 km² · 5.3 million peopleLies almost exactly at the geographic centre of Africa.
  10. ChadN'Djamena1,284,000 km² · 20.3 million peopleLake Chad has shrunk by about 90% since the 1960s.
  11. ComorosMoroni1,862 km² · 852,000 peopleKnown as the Perfume Islands for its ylang-ylang, used in Chanel No. 5.
  12. CongoBrazzaville342,000 km² · 6.3 million peopleBrazzaville and Kinshasa face each other across the Congo River — the closest pair of capitals.
  13. Côte d'IvoireYamoussoukro322,463 km² · 31.9 million peopleThe world's largest cocoa producer, growing about 40% of the global supply.
  14. Democratic Republic of the CongoKinshasa2,344,858 km² · 109 million peopleThe most populous French-speaking country in the world.
  15. DjiboutiDjibouti23,200 km² · 1.2 million peopleLake Assal, at 155 m below sea level, is the lowest point in Africa.
  16. EgyptCairo1,002,450 km² · 116 million peopleThe Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest structure on Earth for nearly 4,000 years.
  17. Equatorial GuineaMalabo28,051 km² · 1.9 million peopleThe only African country with Spanish as an official language.
  18. EritreaAsmara117,600 km² · 3.5 million peopleAsmara is a UNESCO site for its 1930s Italian modernist architecture.
  19. eSwatiniLobamba17,364 km² · 1.2 million peopleOne of the world's last absolute monarchies; renamed from Swaziland in 2018.
  20. EthiopiaAddis Ababa1,104,300 km² · 129 million peopleNever colonised; its calendar has 13 months and runs about seven years behind the Gregorian one.
  21. GabonLibreville267,668 km² · 2.5 million peopleRainforest covers nearly 90% of the country.
  22. GambiaBanjul10,689 km² · 2.8 million peopleThe smallest country on mainland Africa, following the Gambia River and surrounded by Senegal.
  23. GhanaAccra238,533 km² · 34.4 million peopleLake Volta is one of the largest artificial lakes in the world by surface area.
  24. GuineaConakry245,857 km² · 14.8 million peopleCalled the water tower of West Africa: the Niger, Senegal and Gambia rivers all rise here.
  25. Guinea-BissauBissau36,125 km² · 2.2 million peopleThe Bijagós archipelago has saltwater hippos and matriarchal island communities.
  26. KenyaNairobi580,367 km² · 55.3 million peopleThe wildebeest migration crosses the Maasai Mara each year; Nairobi has a national park inside the city.
  27. LesothoMaseru30,355 km² · 2.3 million peopleThe only country lying entirely above 1,000 m, and completely encircled by South Africa.
  28. LiberiaMonrovia111,369 km² · 5.5 million peopleFounded by freed American slaves in 1822 — Africa's oldest republic.
  29. LibyaTripoli1,759,540 km² · 7.4 million peopleOver 90% desert; the Sahara here has recorded some of the hottest temperatures on Earth.
  30. MadagascarAntananarivo587,041 km² · 31 million peopleAbout 90% of its wildlife, including every lemur, exists nowhere else.
  31. MalawiLilongwe118,484 km² · 21.7 million peopleLake Malawi has more fish species than any other lake in the world.
  32. MaliBamako1,240,192 km² · 24 million peopleTimbuktu was a centre of Islamic scholarship with hundreds of thousands of manuscripts.
  33. MauritaniaNouakchott1,030,700 km² · 5.2 million peopleThe Richat Structure, a 40 km 'Eye of the Sahara', is visible from space.
  34. MauritiusPort Louis2,040 km² · 1.3 million peopleThe dodo lived only here and was extinct by 1681 — it still appears on the coat of arms.
  35. MoroccoRabat446,550 km² · 37.8 million peopleFez has the world's oldest continuously operating university, founded in 859.
  36. MozambiqueMaputo801,590 km² · 34.6 million peopleThe only national flag that shows a modern rifle — an AK-47.
  37. NamibiaWindhoek825,615 km² · 3 million peopleThe Namib is the oldest desert on Earth; the country has Africa's largest free-roaming cheetah population.
  38. NigerNiamey1,267,000 km² · 27 million peopleOne of the hottest countries on Earth; the Sahara covers around 80% of it.
  39. NigeriaAbuja923,768 km² · 232 million peopleAfrica's most populous country, with over 500 languages spoken.
  40. RwandaKigali26,338 km² · 14.3 million peopleThe land of a thousand hills; its parliament has the highest share of women in the world.
  41. São Tomé and PrincipeSão Tomé964 km² · 231,000 peopleAfrica's second-smallest country, almost on the equator and once the world's top cocoa producer.
  42. SenegalDakar196,722 km² · 18.5 million peopleDakar is the westernmost capital in mainland Africa; Gorée Island recalls the Atlantic slave trade.
  43. SeychellesVictoria452 km² · 121,000 peopleThe coco de mer palm here bears the largest seed in the plant kingdom.
  44. Sierra LeoneFreetown71,740 km² · 8.8 million peopleFreetown was founded in 1792 as a home for freed slaves.
  45. SomaliaMogadishu637,657 km² · 19 million peopleHas the longest coastline on mainland Africa, over 3,300 km.
  46. Somaliland
  47. South AfricaPretoria1,221,037 km² · 63.2 million peopleHas three capitals — Pretoria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein — and eleven official languages.
  48. South SudanJuba619,745 km² · 11.9 million peopleThe world's youngest country, independent since 2011; the Sudd is one of the largest wetlands.
  49. SudanKhartoum1,886,068 km² · 50.4 million peopleHas more pyramids than Egypt — over 200 at Meroë and other Kushite sites.
  50. TanzaniaDodoma945,087 km² · 68.6 million peopleKilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, and the Serengeti migration are both here.
  51. TogoLomé56,785 km² · 9.3 million peopleOne of Africa's narrowest countries: 50 to 140 km wide but 550 km long.
  52. TunisiaTunis163,610 km² · 12.3 million peopleCarthage, Rome's great rival, stood near modern Tunis; Tatooine in Star Wars was filmed here.
  53. UgandaKampala241,550 km² · 49 million peopleThe Nile begins its journey at Jinja on Lake Victoria; home to half the world's mountain gorillas.
  54. Western Sahara266,000 km² · 590,000 peopleA disputed territory since Spain withdrew in 1975; mostly desert, with large phosphate mines.
  55. ZambiaLusaka752,612 km² · 20.7 million peopleShares Victoria Falls with Zimbabwe; the Zambezi feeds Lake Kariba, one of the largest man-made lakes.
  56. ZimbabweHarare390,757 km² · 16.6 million peopleNamed after Great Zimbabwe, a medieval stone city; Victoria Falls is the largest sheet of falling water.

Questions about these flags

Why do so many African flags use green, yellow and red?

They are Ethiopia's colours, and Ethiopia was the one African state never colonised, so the countries that became independent in the 1950s and 1960s adopted them as a mark of shared freedom. Ghana led in 1957; Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Cameroon, Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso, Congo, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Principe, Mozambique and Zimbabwe followed, each in its own arrangement.

Why is there a rifle on the flag of Mozambique?

The AK-47, crossed with a hoe over an open book on a yellow star, comes from the emblem of FRELIMO, the movement that fought Portugal for the independence won in 1975: the rifle for defence and vigilance, the hoe for the land and those who work it, the book for education. No other national flag shows a modern firearm.

Why is Somaliland outlined on the map but not in the deck?

Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 and runs its own government, currency and flag, but it has no general international recognition and the map data gives it no ISO code. The deck attaches flags by that code, so Somaliland is drawn as a separate shape and takes no card. Western Sahara does have a code, and its flag is dealt.

More maps

Capitals on the same map: African capitals. Other maps: Europe, Asia, Americas. All 235 flags of the world with their capitals: Flags of the world · all modes.