drawing the map…
Flagglobe
Natural Earth 1:10m · 19 regions
Modes About this quiz ↓ Privacy

Spanish Regions Flags Quiz

The flags of Spain's seventeen autonomous communities and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla on a flat map — from Catalonia's stripes and the Basque ikurriña to the islands in the Atlantic. Click a region or drag the flag onto it: three tries per flag, then the map shows the answer. One name, one hint and one skip are free for the round.

Drag the flag onto a region, or click the region. Name shows the region 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 19 regions and their capitals, the flags explained, more maps ↓

↑ Back to the map

Spanish Regions Flags Quiz

Drag the flags of Spain's seventeen autonomous communities, Ceuta and Melilla onto a flat map of Spain, three tries each. No labels.

Bars of Aragon, castles of Castile: the two big families

Each of Spain's statutes of autonomy, drawn up after the 1978 constitution, describes a flag; most of the designs are far older. Two medieval families account for eight of the nineteen. The four red bars on gold of the counts of Barcelona and kings of Aragon fly plain over Catalonia. Aragon adds its crowned arms at the hoist, quartered with the oak of Sobrarbe, the cross of Íñigo Arista, the four Moors' heads of the cross of Alcoraz and the bars themselves. The Balearic Islands add a purple canton with a white castle, and Valencia a blue band at the hoist bearing a gold crown laid on its side, edged with a red strip set with jewels. The second family is Castile's gold castle on red and León's purple lion on white. Castile and León quarters them, as the arms of the crown did from the union of 1230. Castilla-La Mancha halves its cloth red and white with a single castle, the white standing for the military orders that held La Mancha. Murcia puts four gold castles in one corner of a crimson field, for the old kingdom's frontiers, and seven gold crowns in the other, granted to the city by Castilian kings.

Cross, chains and seven stars: the one-off flags

The Basque ikurriña, designed by Sabino Arana in 1894, is a red field with a green saltire under a white cross. Asturias is the gold Victory Cross on blue, the letters alpha and omega hanging from its arms; the jewelled original, given to Oviedo Cathedral in 908, is still there. Navarre is red with the kingdom's gold chains meeting at a green emerald, under a crown; the well-known legend ties them to the chains Sancho VII broke through at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. Madrid is crimson with seven white stars in two rows, the stars of the Great Bear from the city's arms, each with five points for the five provinces around it. Galicia is white with a single blue diagonal from the old maritime flag of A Coruña and the arms of the old kingdom at the centre, a gold chalice and host among seven silver crosses. Andalusia is green, white and green, the colours Blas Infante proposed to the Assembly of Ronda in 1918.

Plain stripes, a broken chain and two cities in Africa

Four flags are plain stripes in the deck, though their official versions carry arms in the middle. The Canary Islands are white, blue and yellow, the colours of Tenerife's province joined to those of Las Palmas'. Extremadura is green, white and black; La Rioja is red, white, green and yellow. Cantabria is white over red with the arms at the centre: a ship breaking the chain across the Guadalquivir before the Torre del Oro, for the Cantabrian sailors at the capture of Seville in 1248, above a Cantabrian stela. Ceuta is Lisbon's flag, a gyronny of black and white, charged with the shield of Portugal, which took the city in 1415; it stayed with Spain when Portugal broke away in 1640. Melilla is light blue with the arms of the dukes of Medina Sidonia, whose troops took it in 1497, between two columns with a dragon at the base.

Nine stripes four times: telling the look-alikes apart

The bars of Aragon are the main trap. Catalonia is the plain version; Aragon has a crowned shield at the hoist; the Balearic Islands have the purple canton with a castle; Valencia has the blue band. Three flags are plain red with something in the corners or the middle: Madrid has seven stars, Murcia castles and crowns, Navarre chains. Castilla-La Mancha, half red and half white with one castle, is not Castile and León, which has two castles and two lions. Andalusia and Extremadura both start green and white, but Andalusia ends green and Extremadura black. Ceuta is the only black-and-white flag and Melilla the only light blue one; Galicia has a diagonal band where Asturias has a cross; Cantabria alone is white over red.

All 19 regions and their capitals

19 regions 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. AndalusiaSeville
  2. AragonZaragoza
  3. AsturiasOviedo
  4. Balearic IslandsPalma
  5. Basque CountryVitoria-Gasteiz
  6. Canary IslandsSanta Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas
  7. CantabriaSantander
  8. Castile and LeónValladolid
  9. Castilla-La ManchaToledo
  10. CataloniaBarcelona
  11. CeutaCeuta
  12. ExtremaduraMérida
  13. GaliciaSantiago de Compostela
  14. La RiojaLogroño
  15. MadridMadrid
  16. MelillaMelilla
  17. MurciaMurcia
  18. NavarrePamplona
  19. ValenciaValencia

Questions about these flags

Why does Ceuta's flag look like the flag of Lisbon?

Because it is the same design: a gyronny of black and white, as Lisbon flies. Portugal took Ceuta in 1415, its first conquest across the strait, and the city kept the flag when the garrison chose the Spanish crown after Portugal regained its independence in 1640; the Treaty of Lisbon confirmed it in 1668. The shield in the middle is Portugal's own, with a crown above.

What are the four red bars on the flags of Catalonia, Aragon, Valencia and the Balearic Islands?

The arms of the counts of Barcelona and kings of Aragon, attested on seals from the twelfth century and among the oldest emblems in Europe still in daily use. Everything the Crown of Aragon ruled inherited them, which is why they appear four times on this map and once more inside Aragon's own shield. The tale of Wilfred the Hairy drawing them in blood is a much later legend.

Why is the Andalusian flag green and white?

Blas Infante, the father of Andalusian regionalism, proposed the green, white and green stripes at the Assembly of Ronda in 1918, reading the colours as hope and peace and tracing them to the banners of medieval al-Andalus. The arms at the centre of the official version show Hercules between two lions; the deck shows the plain stripes, which is what most people fly.

More maps

Capitals on the same map: Spanish regional capitals. Other maps: US states, Australian states, Ukrainian oblasts, UK counties, French regions, Italian regions, Japanese prefectures, Brazilian states, Polish voivodeships, German states, 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.