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Polish Voivodeship Flags Quiz

Drag the flags of Poland's sixteen voivodeships onto a flat map of Poland, three tries each. No labels.

Sixteen voivodeships and flags barely older than the century

Poland's present voivodeships date from 1999, when a reform cut forty-nine small ones down to sixteen, and every flag here was adopted in the years that followed. What they draw on is far older. Each region reached for the heraldry of the historical land it covers: the eagles of the Piast dukes who ruled Silesia, Masovia and Greater Poland, the griffins of the Pomeranian dukes, the stag of the old Lublin Voivodeship, the bars and stars of Sandomierz. Some fly those arms on a banner; seven simply take the colours of their arms and lay them out as plain stripes, so the deck mixes heraldic beasts with flags that could pass for a small country's.

Four eagles and two blue-and-gold flags

Lower Silesian is a black eagle on gold with a white crescent and a small cross across its breast, the arms of the Silesian Piasts of Wrocław. Masovian is a white eagle on red with gold beak and talons and no crown, the eagle of the dukes of Masovia, apart from the Crown until 1526. Greater Poland's eagle wears a crown and gold bands across its wings, on a red panel at the hoist with a white fly cut away on a diagonal, so the flag is not a rectangle. Warmian-Masurian uses the same diagonal cut, red on white, and shows only a crowned white eagle's head. Upper Silesia's gold eagle on blue appears on no flag as a bird but gives two their colours: Silesian is blue with a narrow yellow stripe through the middle, and Opole is yellow over a narrower band of blue.

Griffins, a stag, a lion and a relic

Pomeranian is a black griffin with a red tongue on gold, the beast of Gdańsk Pomerania and of the Kashubians. West Pomeranian is a red griffin on a white shield on a tall red banner, the arms of the Griffin dynasty that ruled Pomerania from Szczecin until it died out in 1637. Lublin sets a red shield on white, red and yellow stripes; on it a white stag leaps with a gold crown around its neck, the emblem of Lublin since the days of the Commonwealth. Podkarpackie flies upright light blue, white and light blue with a shield split red and blue: a white cross with flared arms at the top, a crowned white griffin on the red and a crowned golden lion on the blue, the lion of the old Ruthenian Voivodeship seated at Lwów. Świętokrzyskie is named for the Holy Cross abbey on Łysa Góra and its relic of the True Cross, so its quartered shield opens with a gold double-barred cross on blue; the other quarters hold the crowned Polish eagle and the red and white bars and nine gold stars of old Sandomierz. It sits on white between blue and red bands, with a yellow stripe up the hoist.

Seven flags of plain stripes

Lesser Poland is white, yellow and red in horizontal bands; Podlaskie is white, red, yellow and blue; Lubusz yellow, white, red and green, the outer bands widest. Kuyavian-Pomeranian is red, white and black, Yemen's colours with a wider white band. Silesian and Opole are the blue and gold pair above; Łódź is the only flag of upright stripes without arms, red, yellow, red, yellow, red.

What settles the look-alikes

Lesser Poland, Podlaskie and Lublin all start with white: Lesser Poland has yellow in the middle, Podlaskie ends in blue, Lublin has the stag. Silesian and Opole are both blue and gold, but Opole is two bands and Silesian three, blue at both edges; Opole is Ukraine's flag reversed. The griffins are told by colour: black on gold is Pomeranian, red on white West Pomeranian. The two white eagles on red are told by the crown: Masovian has none, Greater Poland has one and the cut-away fly. Greater Poland and Warmian-Masurian share that cut; one shows the whole bird, the other only its head. Lower Silesian is the only black eagle, and Łódź the only red and yellow.

All 16 voivodeships and their capitals

16 voivodeships 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. Greater PolandPoznań
2. Kuyavian-PomeranianBydgoszcz and Toruń
3. Lesser PolandKraków
4. ŁódźŁódź
5. Lower SilesianWrocław
6. LublinLublin
7. LubuszGorzów Wielkopolski and Zielona Góra
8. MasovianWarsaw
9. OpoleOpole
10. PodkarpackieRzeszów
11. PodlaskieBiałystok
12. PomeranianGdańsk
13. SilesianKatowice
14. ŚwiętokrzyskieKielce
15. Warmian-MasurianOlsztyn
16. West PomeranianSzczecin

Questions about these flags

Why do so many Polish voivodeship flags carry an eagle?

The medieval Piast dynasty split into branches, and each branch's eagle became the arms of its land. The Silesian line at Wrocław used a black eagle on gold with a white crescent, the Upper Silesian dukes of Opole a gold eagle on blue, the dukes of Masovia a white eagle on red without a crown, and Greater Poland kept the crowned white eagle that became the arms of the kingdom.

Which voivodeship flags are plain stripes with no emblem?

Seven of the sixteen: Lesser Poland (white, yellow, red), Podlaskie (white, red, yellow, blue), Lubusz (yellow, white, red, green), Kuyavian-Pomeranian (red, white, black), Opole (yellow over blue), Silesian (blue with a yellow stripe) and Łódź (red and yellow upright). The colours are those of each region's coat of arms, which is why Silesian and Opole, both with a gold eagle on blue, end up in the same two colours.

What is the difference between the Pomeranian and West Pomeranian flags?

Both show a griffin, the beast of the medieval Pomeranian dukes, but in different colours. Pomeranian, around Gdańsk, flies a black griffin on a gold field, the Kashubian colours. West Pomeranian, around Szczecin, flies a tall red banner with a white shield and a red griffin, the arms of the Griffin dynasty that ruled there until 1637.

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