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Mexican State Flags Quiz

Drag the flags of Mexico's 31 states and Mexico City onto a flat map of Mexico, three tries each. No labels.

Arms on white: why most Mexican states have no flag

Mexico's states differ from the states of the United States or Brazil in one respect: most of them have never adopted a flag. The only flag with legal standing across the country is the national one, and what a state government hangs beside it is its coat of arms on a plain white field. That is what twenty-nine of the thirty-two cards in this deck show, so the shield is the whole clue, and the round is a test of heraldry rather than of colours and stripes.

Many of the shields are older than the states. Mexico City's arms were granted by Charles V in 1523: a castle between two lions on a bridge, ringed by prickly-pear pads, drawn on the card in a single dark colour. Tlaxcala's, from 1535, put a gold castle on red beneath three royal initials, I, K and F, usually read as Joanna, Charles and Philip, with skulls and crossbones at the foot. Campeche, Tabasco and Durango still wear crowns, and Veracruz keeps a gold tower between two white columns on blue under a red cross, the arms of the colonial port.

Three states with flags of their own

Jalisco flies a vertical blue and gold flag with the arms of Guadalajara, its capital, in the centre: a shield with a tree between two lions, a helmet and a red pennant above. Tlaxcala divides its flag diagonally, white above and red below, with the arms in the middle and the words Edo. de Tlaxcala, Edo. being short for Estado, in gold in the red corner. Yucatán uses the flag of the Republic of Yucatán, which broke away from Mexico in 1841 and returned for good in 1848: a green band at the hoist with five white stars, one for each department of the republic, and red, white and red stripes beside it. In the deck it looks more like a national flag than a state one, and it is the easiest card of the thirty-two.

Reading the shields: words, eagles and landscapes

A few shields name their state. Chihuahua writes Estado de Chih. around a red shield with a chequered band and an aqueduct; Sonora writes Estado de Sonora under a blue shield with a Yaqui deer dancer, a sheaf of wheat, a bull's head and a shark; Nuevo León writes its name across a shield that shows the Cerro de la Silla, the saddle-shaped mountain above Monterrey, with the motto Semper Ascendens below; Sinaloa prints its name on a red oval under an eagle; Coahuila de Zaragoza and Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla run round the edge of their shields. Morelos carries the slogan of Zapata, Tierra y Libertad, above a green maize plant on red, and Oaxaca the saying of Juárez, that respect for the rights of others is peace, on a red scroll under the national eagle.

Other shields borrow national symbols. The eagle on its cactus sits above Oaxaca, Querétaro and the State of Mexico, whose border reads Libertad, Trabajo, Cultura. Hidalgo and Querétaro both have flags crossed behind the shield; Hidalgo's shows green hills with the bell of Dolores and a red Phrygian cap, and a drum beneath, while Querétaro adds a laurel wreath under the eagle. Landscapes do the work elsewhere: Chiapas shows the Sumidero Canyon, a river between two cliffs, with a lion and a castle on either side; Zacatecas the Bufa hill under a cross; Tamaulipas the Cerro del Bernal above a boat and a road; San Luis Potosí its patron saint standing on a green hill between bars of gold and silver, for the mines.

The pairs to keep apart

Campeche and Tabasco are both crowned, quartered shields with red quarters. Campeche has ships on blue quarters and towers on red inside a gold rococo frame; Tabasco has castles on red, an arm with a sword and a crowned Virgin on white, and a lion. Sonora and Baja California Sur are both blue shields: the white scallop shell between four silver fish is Baja California Sur, the deer dancer and the lettering are Sonora. Baja California, further north, shows two figures holding up the sun over a friar with open arms. Durango is the only shield with wolves, two of them under an oak; Coahuila has a single lion beside a tree; Michoacán has a blue border of stars around a horseman and three crowns; Guerrero a plumed Aztec head-dress above a warrior; Colima a bent arm over water on red under a plumed helmet; Quintana Roo a snail, a star and three trees under a sunrise, on the brightest shield of the set.

All 32 states and their capitals

32 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. AguascalientesAguascalientes
2. Baja CaliforniaMexicali
3. Baja California SurLa Paz
4. CampecheCampeche
5. ChiapasTuxtla Gutiérrez
6. ChihuahuaChihuahua
7. CoahuilaSaltillo
8. ColimaColima
9. DurangoDurango
10. GuanajuatoGuanajuato
11. GuerreroChilpancingo
12. HidalgoPachuca
13. JaliscoGuadalajara
14. Mexico CityMexico City
15. MichoacánMorelia
16. MorelosCuernavaca
17. NayaritTepic
18. Nuevo LeónMonterrey
19. OaxacaOaxaca de Juárez
20. PueblaPuebla
21. QuerétaroSantiago de Querétaro
22. Quintana RooChetumal
23. San Luis PotosíSan Luis Potosí
24. SinaloaCuliacán
25. SonoraHermosillo
26. State of MexicoToluca
27. TabascoVillahermosa
28. TamaulipasCiudad Victoria
29. TlaxcalaTlaxcala
30. VeracruzXalapa
31. YucatánMérida
32. ZacatecasZacatecas

Questions about these flags

Which Mexican states have a flag of their own?

Only three cards in the deck are flags in the usual sense: Jalisco, vertical blue and gold with the arms of Guadalajara; Tlaxcala, white and red split on the diagonal; and Yucatán, the 1841 flag of the Republic of Yucatán. The other twenty-eight states and Mexico City are shown as their coat of arms on white, which is how their governments display them.

Why is Mexico City in a deck of states?

Because it is a federal entity on the same footing as the states, though not a state itself. Until 2016 it was the Distrito Federal, the federal district; a constitutional reform renamed it Ciudad de México and gave it a constitution of its own. The State of Mexico, whose capital is Toluca, is the separate unit wrapped around it.

What do the five stars on the Yucatan flag stand for?

The flag was raised in 1841, when Yucatán declared itself independent of Mexico; the peninsula returned for good in 1848. The five white stars on the green band stood for the five departments the republic was divided into at the time. The state uses the design today, and it is the only card in the deck that looks like a national flag.

More maps

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