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Natural Earth 1:10m · 16 Länder
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German State Flags Quiz

The flags of the sixteen Länder on a flat map of Germany — from Bavaria's blue and white to the bicolours you have to tell apart. Click a state or drag the flag onto it: three tries per flag, then the map shows the answer. One state name, one hint and one skip are free for the round.

Drag the flag onto a state, or click the state. Name shows the state 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 16 states and their capitals, the flags explained, more maps ↓

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German State Flags Quiz

Drag the flags of the sixteen German Länder onto a flat map of Germany, three tries each. No labels.

State colours before state flags: why so many Lander fly plain stripes

Eight of the sixteen cards are nothing but horizontal stripes, by design. German states define their Landesfarben, the state colours, before their flags: the colours are lifted from the old dynastic arms, the plain stripes are the civil flag anyone may fly, and a version with the arms is kept for public authorities. Bavaria's white and blue are the tinctures of the Wittelsbach lozenges. Saxony's white over green was the Kingdom of Saxony's flag. Hesse's red over white and Thuringia's white over red descend from the same striped lion, the arms of the medieval Landgraves of Thuringia. Baden-Württemberg, created in 1952, could take neither Baden's yellow and red nor Württemberg's black and red, so it chose black and gold from the three lions of the Hohenstaufen dukes of Swabia.

Schleswig-Holstein's blue, white and red come from the blue lions of Schleswig and the white nettle leaf on red of Holstein, and were first flown in the 1840s against Danish rule. North Rhine-Westphalia joins the green and white of the Prussian Rhine Province to the white and red of Westphalia. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania stacks Mecklenburg's blue, yellow and red with Pomerania's blue and white into five stripes.

Black, red and gold with a shield: three states without a past

Three cards are the federal tricolour with something added, all from states assembled after 1945. Lower Saxony was put together in 1946 from Hanover, Brunswick, Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe; none of the four would accept another's colours, so it took the federal ones and set the Saxon Steed, a white horse on a red shield, in the middle. Rhineland-Palatinate alone keeps its shield in the corner by the hoist: the red cross of the Archbishops of Trier, the white wheel of Mainz and the gold lion of the Palatinate, under a golden crown of vine leaves, a people's crown rather than a prince's. Saarland, under French control until it joined the Federal Republic in 1957, centres a shield quartered from its four old rulers: the silver lion of Nassau-Saarbrücken, the Trier cross again, the red diagonal with three small eagles of Lorraine, and the gold Palatine lion on black.

Bears, a castle and bacon: the pictorial flags of the north and east

Berlin's flag is a black bear on white between two red stripes, a pun on the city's name on its seals since the thirteenth century; the flag dates from 1954. Brandenburg flies red over white with the red eagle of its medieval margraves on a white shield; the gold clover stalks across the wings mark it as Brandenburg's eagle rather than Prussia's black one. Hamburg's is a white castle on red, three towers, a cross on the middle one, a star over each of the others and the gate shut. Bremen's red and white stripes with a chequered band along the hoist are known at home as the Speckflagge, the bacon flag. Saxony-Anhalt, yellow over black, carries a shield with the black eagle of Prussia, the black and gold bars and green crown of rue of the Wettins, and the black bear of Anhalt on a red battlemented wall.

Which colour is on top: the pairs that get mixed up

Hesse is red over white and Thuringia white over red, with no arms on either; the rule is which colour sits on top. Brandenburg is red over white too, but its eagle shield settles it. Baden-Württemberg is black over gold and Saxony-Anhalt gold over black, and the shield on Saxony-Anhalt's card decides. Bavaria's is the only card with a pale sky blue. Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania both run from deep blue at the top to red at the bottom: three stripes for the first, five with a thin yellow line for the second. Among the federal tricolours look at the shield: one white horse in the middle is Lower Saxony, a quartered shield in the middle Saarland, a crowned shield in the top corner Rhineland-Palatinate. Berlin's bear stands upright and fills the card; Saxony-Anhalt's is small, on a wall, inside a shield.

All 16 states and their capitals

16 states are on this map, listed in alphabetical order with their capitals — the same facts the Hint button draws on. All of them are in the deck.

  1. Baden-WürttembergStuttgart
  2. BavariaMunich
  3. BerlinBerlin
  4. BrandenburgPotsdam
  5. BremenBremen
  6. HamburgHamburg
  7. HesseWiesbaden
  8. Lower SaxonyHanover
  9. Mecklenburg-Western PomeraniaSchwerin
  10. North Rhine-WestphaliaDüsseldorf
  11. Rhineland-PalatinateMainz
  12. SaarlandSaarbrücken
  13. SaxonyDresden
  14. Saxony-AnhaltMagdeburg
  15. Schleswig-HolsteinKiel
  16. ThuringiaErfurt

Questions about these flags

Why do three German state flags look like the national flag?

Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland were all created after the Second World War from pieces of older states and had no dynastic colours of their own, so each took the federal black, red and gold and added its coat of arms: a white horse, a crowned shield in the corner and a quartered shield respectively.

Why is Bavaria's flag striped here rather than the diamond pattern?

Bavaria has two official flags of equal standing, both in the white and blue of the Wittelsbach dynasty: one of horizontal stripes, white above blue, and one covered in white and blue lozenges. The deck uses the striped version, which is the one more often seen on public buildings.

Which cards in this deck carry a coat of arms?

Seven: Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Saxony-Anhalt show a shield, Berlin its bear and Hamburg its castle. The rest fly their civil flags of plain stripes. Several of those states, among them Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Saxony and Thuringia, also have a service flag with the arms that only authorities may use.

More maps

Capitals on the same map: German state capitals. Other maps: US states, Australian states, Ukrainian oblasts, UK counties, French regions, Spanish regions, Italian regions, Japanese prefectures, Brazilian states, Polish voivodeships, Dutch provinces, Swedish counties, Canadian provinces, Mexican states, Argentine provinces, Swiss cantons. All 235 flags of the world with their capitals: Flags of the world · all modes.