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Dutch Province Flags Quiz

Drag the flags of the twelve Dutch provinces onto a flat map of the Netherlands, three tries each. No labels.

Arms first, flags second: twelve designs adopted between 1947 and 1986

The Dutch provinces have carried coats of arms since the Middle Ages, but flags are a recent habit: none of the twelve in this deck is older than Drenthe's of 1947, and the last two, Flevoland's and the South Holland lion, arrived in 1986. Most were made the same way, by laying out the colours of the provincial arms as stripes or lifting one charge from the shield onto a plain field. Gelderland's blue, yellow and black are the tinctures of its arms, a gold lion on blue for the old Duchy of Guelders beside a black lion on gold for Jülich. North Holland's yellow, red and blue combine the red lion on gold of Holland with the blue of West Friesland. Overijssel's red, yellow and red carry a wavy blue band for the river IJssel, beyond which the province lies as seen from Holland.

Three lions and a river: the flags built around the Holland lion

South Holland's card is the plainest and boldest: a red lion with blue tongue and claws rearing on yellow, the lion of the medieval Counts of Holland, which in 1986 replaced a yellow over red bicolour. Zeeland puts the same lion on a gold shield, but only its upper half shows; the lower half is blue and white waves out of which it climbs, under a gold crown. The motto Luctor et Emergo, I struggle and emerge, belongs to the arms and is not on the flag. Limburg's lion is a different one, the red crowned lion of the old Duchy of Limburg, standing at the hoist over white and yellow cut by a narrow blue stripe for the Meuse, which runs the whole length of the province.

Water-lily leaves, a lily for an engineer and a castle for a fortress

Friesland's flag is the one every Dutch person can draw: seven diagonal stripes, four blue and three white, with seven red pompeblêden, the leaves of the yellow water-lily, on the white ones. They are routinely mistaken for hearts, and seven is the number of the medieval Frisian sea-lands. Flevoland, a province since 1986 and built entirely on land reclaimed from the Zuiderzee, tells its own story: blue for the water, green for the new land, a yellow band, wavy at the hoist and straight towards the fly, for the rapeseed grown on the polders, and a white fleur-de-lis punning on the name of Cornelis Lely, the engineer whose plan enclosed and drained the sea.

Drenthe's white flag with two red stripes shows a black castle for the old fortress of Coevorden between six red stars, one for each of the six dingspelen, its historic districts; red and white were the colours of the bishops of Utrecht, who once ruled it. Utrecht itself is white over red with a small red square in the top corner bearing a white cross, the ancient arms of the bishopric. Groningen's green cross edged in white on quarters of red and blue joins the city's colours to those of the Ommelanden, the countryside around it. North Brabant is a red and white chequerboard of twenty-four squares, revived in 1959 from an old chequered flag of Brabant.

Stripes that rhyme: telling the look-alikes apart

Two cards are plain tricolours with yellow in them: North Holland is yellow, red and blue from the top, Gelderland blue, yellow and black, so a black stripe at the bottom means Gelderland and a red one in the middle North Holland. Two more have a blue band across the middle: Overijssel's is wavy, on yellow between red stripes; Limburg's is straight, between white and yellow, with the lion standing over it. Drenthe and Utrecht are both white with red, but Drenthe's red is two narrow stripes with the castle and stars between, Utrecht's the whole lower half with the little cross in the corner. The lions sort by what they stand on: plain yellow for South Holland, a shield on waves for Zeeland, stripes for Limburg.

All 12 provinces and their capitals

12 provinces 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. DrentheAssen
2. FlevolandLelystad
3. FrieslandLeeuwarden
4. GelderlandArnhem
5. GroningenGroningen
6. LimburgMaastricht
7. North Brabant's-Hertogenbosch
8. North HollandHaarlem
9. OverijsselZwolle
10. South HollandThe Hague
11. UtrechtUtrecht
12. ZeelandMiddelburg

Questions about these flags

Are the red shapes on the Frisian flag hearts?

No. They are pompeblêden, the leaves of the yellow water-lily that floats on Frisian lakes, seven of them for the seven medieval Frisian sea-lands, laid on the white stripes of a diagonal blue and white field. The province adopted the flag officially in 1957, though it had been flown for decades before that.

Why is there a fleur-de-lis on Flevoland's flag?

It is a pun on the name of Cornelis Lely, the engineer whose plan to close off and drain the Zuiderzee created the land the province stands on; lelie is Dutch for lily. Blue stands for the water, green for the new polders and the yellow band for the rapeseed grown on them. The province and its flag both date from 1986.

Which Dutch provinces have a lion on their flag?

Three. South Holland flies the red lion of the medieval Counts of Holland on plain yellow. Zeeland puts the same lion in a crowned shield, rising from blue and white waves. Limburg's is the red crowned lion of the old Duchy of Limburg, standing at the hoist over white, blue and yellow stripes.

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Other maps: US states, Australian states, Ukrainian oblasts, UK counties, French regions, Spanish regions, Italian regions, Japanese prefectures, Brazilian states, Polish voivodeships, German states, 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.