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Natural Earth 1:50m · 45 countries
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Flags of Europe Quiz

The flags of forty-five European countries on a flat map, from the ones everybody knows to the microstates. 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 45 countries and their capitals, the flags explained, more maps ↓

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Flags of Europe Quiz

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

Crosses, tricolours and eagles: the families on this map

Almost every flag on this map belongs to a family, and the family narrows a card to two or three countries before you look at the detail. The five Nordic crosses — Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland — all set the upright of the cross towards the hoist. Denmark's white cross on red, the Dannebrog, is the oldest national flag still in use, and the other four copied its off-centre layout. Tricolours come in two sets: vertical ones in the French manner (France, Italy, Ireland, Belgium, Romania, Moldova, Andorra) and horizontal ones in the Dutch manner (Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania).

The Pan-Slavic white, blue and red make a third cluster: Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia use the same three colours, and each adds a coat of arms so that the plain fields do not collide. Czechia kept the flag of Czechoslovakia, white over red with a blue wedge at the hoist. Two-headed eagles mark the Balkans: black on Albania's red field, gold on Montenegro's red field inside a gold border, and white on the shield of Serbia's tricolour.

Keys, an armillary sphere and a map of an island

A few flags carry devices that mean something once you know what they are. Portugal's shield rests on an armillary sphere, the navigators' instrument of the age of discovery, on a field of green and red adopted after the republic of 1910. The Vatican's yellow-and-white flag shows the crossed keys of Saint Peter under the papal tiara. Cyprus chose in 1960 a copper-coloured silhouette of the island above two olive branches: copper for the metal named after the island, olive for peace, and deliberately neither Greek blue nor Turkish red. Liechtenstein's gold crown was added in 1937 after its team at the 1936 Olympics found that plain blue over red was also the flag of Haiti.

Bosnia and Herzegovina's yellow triangle on blue with a diagonal row of white stars dates from 1998: the triangle stands for the three constituent peoples and roughly for the shape of the country, the stars for Europe, and the row is cut off at both edges to suggest it continues. North Macedonia's sun with eight rays replaced the sixteen-rayed Vergina Sun in 1995 to settle a dispute with Greece. Malta's George Cross in the canton is the British decoration awarded to the island in 1942, and Belarus edges its red-over-green field with a red embroidery pattern at the hoist.

The pairs that cost the most misses

Monaco is red over white; Poland is white over red. Norway and Iceland are each other's negative: Norway's cross is blue on red, Iceland's red on blue, both edged in white. Austria and Latvia are both red-white-red, but Latvia's red is a dark carmine and its white stripe is half the height of the others, while Austria's three bands are equal and bright. The Netherlands and Luxembourg differ in the bottom stripe: Luxembourg's is a light sky blue, the Dutch one a deep cobalt.

Slovakia and Slovenia both put a shield near the hoist of white, blue and red stripes. Slovakia's shield is red, with a white double cross on three blue hills; Slovenia's is blue, with the white outline of Triglav under three gold stars, and sits higher, across the white and blue stripes. Romania and Moldova share the blue-yellow-red order; Moldova adds an eagle holding a shield with an aurochs head in the middle of the yellow, and Andorra puts its own arms, with the mitre of Urgell and the cows of Béarn, on the same three colours. Orange rather than red separates Ireland from Italy, and Hungary's red-white-green from Bulgaria's white-green-red is a matter of which stripe is on top.

Six microstates and one very small target

The hardest part of this map is often not the flag but the target. Six microstates take a card each — Andorra, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican — and at this scale the Vatican is a single dot inside Rome, and Monaco a speck on the Riviera between Nice and the Italian border. Their flags are mostly generous with clues: San Marino's white over light blue carries a shield with three towers on three peaks under a crown, the Vatican its keys, Liechtenstein its crown, Malta its George Cross, Andorra its arms. Only Monaco is a plain bicolour, and it is the one most often dropped on Poland.

All 45 countries and their capitals

45 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. Kosovo and Northern Cyprus are drawn too but take no flag.

  1. AlbaniaTirana28,748 km² · 2.8 million peopleThe two-headed eagle on its flag comes from the 15th-century national hero Skanderbeg.
  2. AndorraAndorra la Vella468 km² · 81,900 peopleRuled jointly by two co-princes: the Bishop of Urgell in Spain and the President of France.
  3. AustriaVienna83,871 km² · 9.1 million peopleIts red-white-red flag is among the oldest national flags, traced back to the 13th century.
  4. BelarusMinsk207,600 km² · 9.1 million peopleBiałowieża Forest on its western border is Europe's last primeval lowland forest.
  5. BelgiumBrussels30,528 km² · 11.8 million peopleBrussels hosts the headquarters of both the European Union and NATO.
  6. Bosnia and HerzegovinaSarajevo51,209 km² · 3.2 million peopleSarajevo hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics; the Old Bridge of Mostar dates to 1566.
  7. BulgariaSofia110,879 km² · 6.5 million peopleThe Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th century.
  8. CroatiaZagreb56,594 km² · 3.9 million peopleThe necktie originates here: 'cravat' comes from Croatian mercenaries of the 17th century.
  9. CyprusNicosia9,251 km² · 1.4 million peopleLegend places the birth of Aphrodite at Petra tou Romiou on its southern coast.
  10. CzechiaPrague78,865 km² · 10.9 million peopleDrinks more beer per person than any other country; Prague Castle is the largest ancient castle complex.
  11. DenmarkCopenhagen43,094 km² · 6 million peopleThe Dannebrog is the oldest continuously used national flag; legend dates it to 1219.
  12. EstoniaTallinn45,227 km² · 1.4 million peopleHas voted online since 2005 and offers e-residency to foreigners.
  13. FinlandHelsinki338,424 km² · 5.6 million peopleAround 188,000 lakes and about 3 million saunas for 5.6 million people.
  14. FranceParis551,695 km² · 68.4 million peopleThe most visited country in the world; with its overseas regions it spans twelve time zones.
  15. GermanyBerlin357,114 km² · 84.5 million peopleHas over 1,500 kinds of sausage and about 1,300 breweries.
  16. GreeceAthens131,990 km² · 10.4 million peopleHas about 6,000 islands, of which around 200 are inhabited.
  17. HungaryBudapest93,028 km² · 9.6 million peopleBudapest has more thermal springs than any other capital, over 100 of them.
  18. IcelandReykjavik103,000 km² · 384,000 peopleRuns almost entirely on geothermal and hydro power, and has no mosquitoes.
  19. IrelandDublin70,273 km² · 5.3 million peopleThe harp, not the shamrock, is the official national emblem; it appears on every euro coin minted here.
  20. ItalyRome301,336 km² · 58.9 million peopleHas more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other country.
  21. Kosovo
  22. LatviaRiga64,559 km² · 1.9 million peopleRiga's Art Nouveau district is the largest concentration of the style anywhere.
  23. LiechtensteinVaduz160 km² · 40,000 peopleOne of two doubly landlocked countries; it has more registered companies than citizens.
  24. LithuaniaVilnius65,300 km² · 2.9 million peopleBy one calculation the geographic centre of Europe lies just north of Vilnius.
  25. LuxembourgLuxembourg2,586 km² · 672,000 peopleThe world's only Grand Duchy, and one of the richest countries per person.
  26. MacedoniaSkopje25,713 km² · 1.8 million peopleLake Ohrid is one of Europe's oldest and deepest lakes, over a million years old.
  27. MaltaValletta316 km² · 553,000 peopleIts megalithic temples predate Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.
  28. MoldovaChișinău33,846 km² · 2.5 million peopleThe Mileștii Mici winery holds the world's largest wine collection, in 200 km of tunnels.
  29. MonacoMonaco2.02 km² · 38,800 peopleThe most densely populated country and the second smallest; the Grand Prix runs through its streets.
  30. MontenegroPodgorica13,812 km² · 626,000 peopleIts name means 'black mountain'; the Bay of Kotor is Europe's southernmost fjord-like bay.
  31. NetherlandsAmsterdam41,850 km² · 18 million peopleAbout a quarter of the country lies below sea level, and there are more bicycles than people.
  32. Northern Cyprus
  33. NorwayOslo323,802 km² · 5.6 million peopleHas over 1,000 fjords; Svalbard holds the Global Seed Vault.
  34. PolandWarsaw312,679 km² · 36.7 million peopleThe Wieliczka salt mine has been worked since the 13th century and has a cathedral underground.
  35. PortugalLisbon92,090 km² · 10.6 million peopleGrows about half of the world's cork; Lisbon is older than Rome.
  36. RomaniaBucharest238,391 km² · 19 million peopleThe Palace of Parliament in Bucharest is the heaviest building in the world.
  37. San MarinoCity of San Marino61 km² · 34,000 peopleThe world's oldest republic, founded in 301 AD according to tradition.
  38. SerbiaBelgrade88,361 km² · 6.6 million peopleBelgrade has been fought over in about 115 wars and razed 44 times.
  39. SlovakiaBratislava49,037 km² · 5.4 million peopleHas more castles per person than any other country, over 100 of them.
  40. SloveniaLjubljana20,273 km² · 2.1 million peopleMore than half the country is forest; Postojna Cave has a railway running inside it.
  41. SpainMadrid505,992 km² · 48.6 million peopleThe Sagrada Família in Barcelona has been under construction since 1882.
  42. SwedenStockholm450,295 km² · 10.6 million peopleHas about 267,000 islands, and a right to roam that lets anyone camp on almost any land.
  43. SwitzerlandBern41,284 km² · 8.9 million peopleHas four national languages and one of only two square national flags.
  44. TurkeyAnkara783,562 km² · 85.3 million peopleIstanbul is the only city on two continents; Göbekli Tepe is the oldest known temple, about 11,000 years old.
  45. UkraineKyiv603,500 km² · 37.7 million peopleThe largest country entirely in Europe; Kyiv's Saint Sophia Cathedral has stood since the 11th century.
  46. United KingdomLondon242,900 km² · 68.3 million peopleBig Ben is the bell, not the tower; the Tube is the world's oldest underground railway, from 1863.
  47. VaticanVatican City0.44 km² · 800 peopleThe smallest country in the world, at 0.44 km², with about 800 residents.

Questions about these flags

Why are Kosovo and Northern Cyprus drawn but never dealt?

Both are drawn on the map, but neither has an ISO 3166 code in the Natural Earth data behind it, and the deck is keyed by that code. Each has a flag of its own: Kosovo a gold map under six white stars on blue, Northern Cyprus a red crescent and star between two red stripes on white. The gap is in the data, not a verdict on status.

Which is the oldest flag on this map?

Denmark's Dannebrog, a white cross on red, is usually called the oldest national flag still in use: legend dates it to 1219, and documented use goes back to the fourteenth century. Among the tricolours the Dutch red-white-blue is the senior, descended from the orange-white-blue of the sixteenth-century revolt against Spain, with red replacing orange during the seventeenth.

Which European flags are officially square?

Two: Switzerland's white cross on red and the Vatican's keys and tiara on yellow and white are flown 1:1, though the cards here show every flag at the same proportions. Belgium's official ratio of 13:15 is nearly square as well, although the flag is almost always made at 2:3 in practice.

More maps

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