↑ Back to the map

Ukrainian Oblast Flags Quiz

Drag the flags of Ukraine's 24 oblasts, Crimea, Kyiv and Sevastopol onto a flat map, three tries each. No labels.

Old lands under new flags: the oblast banners of Ukraine

Ukraine's oblasts received their flags only after independence in 1991; most were adopted between the late 1990s and the mid-2000s, which makes this one of the youngest sets of regional flags on the site. Young flags, old symbols: nearly every one reaches past the Soviet oblast, which had no heraldry at all, to the historic land it lies in. The golden sun with a face is the emblem of Podillia, and it appears on both Podillian oblasts. Vinnytsia sets it on blue between two red stripes, next to a white cross carrying a small shield with a crescent; Khmelnytskyi puts it in a shield above crossed ears of wheat on a field split blue and red. The white cross of Volhynia is on Volyn's red flag, shifted towards the hoist in the Nordic manner with a smaller cross pattee in the canton, and again in Rivne's red shield beneath a golden trident.

Halychyna, the old Galicia, gives two more. Lviv's crowned golden lion rearing on blue is the lion of the medieval Galician princes, from one of whom the city takes its name. Ivano-Frankivsk's black jackdaw with a gold crown on white is the emblem of Halych, framed by red and black stripes at the hoist and blue and yellow at the fly. Zakarpattia, beyond the Carpathians, sets the arms of Carpathian Ruthenia, a red bear beside blue and gold bars, in the canton of a plain blue-and-yellow bicolour.

Cossack crimson and the man with a musket

The steppe oblasts took their symbols from the Zaporozhian Host. Its emblem, a Cossack with a musket on his shoulder, stands in gold on the crimson field of Zaporizhzhia, surrounded by the regalia of the Host, and again on Dnipropetrovsk: there he stands on white in a crimson coat, beside a wavy diagonal for the Dnipro, with nine gold stars on the blue beyond it. Crimson, the colour of Cossack banners, also fills Kharkiv, whose central shield carries the horn of plenty and the caduceus of the old city arms inside a wreath, and the hoist half of Kirovohrad, where a golden eagle modelled on Scythian goldwork found in the region faces a yellow fly. Poltava keeps it simplest of all: a yellow Cossack cross on blue and nothing else.

Saints, ships and a poet

The two units named Kyiv are the pair most often swapped. The city's flag is blue with a gold border and the Archangel Michael, patron of Kyiv, holding a flaming sword and a shield; the oblast's is a vertical blue, yellow and blue triband with a mounted saint spearing a dragon on the yellow. Mykolaiv, founded as a shipyard and named after Saint Nicholas, patron of sailors, puts a bishop's mitre and two crossed croziers on white over yellow, above a wavy blue edge. Odesa places a white four-fluked anchor in a red shield on a yellow, blue and white vertical tricolour. Sevastopol flies its Soviet-era city arms on red: a shield split diagonally, with the Monument to the Scuttled Ships on the blue half and the Gold Star of a Hero City with a laurel branch on the white.

Crimea, the peninsula around it, is the only flag on the map with no emblem at all: a blue stripe, a broad white band and a red stripe. Cherkasy's blue field carries a golden sun in a swirl of wheat with a portrait of Taras Shevchenko above the shield; the poet was born in the oblast and is buried at Kaniv on the Dnipro. Donetsk is blue over black, the black for coal, with a golden sun rising out of the join and its reflection below.

Two green flags and other near-misses

Chernihiv and Chernivtsi have similar names, both are green, and they lie at opposite ends of the country. Chernihiv, in the north, has a white horizontal stripe and a white canton with a black double-headed eagle; Chernivtsi, in Bukovyna in the south-west, edges its green with blue and yellow and carries a white bird of prey with spread wings in the centre. Volyn and Zhytomyr are both red with a cross: Volyn's is white and off-centre, Zhytomyr's is yellow and centred, with a blue shield showing the city's gate and towers over the crossing. Crimea and Kherson are both tricolours with a broad white band; Kherson's is blue, white and blue, with a small blue shield of golden wheat near the hoist. Luhansk, Sumy and Ternopil are all blue with a modest emblem: Luhansk's arms sit in the upper hoist ringed by small stars, Sumy's paler sky-blue field holds a gold-edged shield with a cap, an ear of wheat and a cross, and Ternopil's has three white towers above a golden sword crossed with a key.

All 27 oblasts and their capitals

27 oblasts 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. CherkasyCherkasy
2. ChernihivChernihiv
3. ChernivtsiChernivtsi
4. CrimeaSimferopol
5. DnipropetrovskDnipro
6. DonetskDonetsk
7. Ivano-FrankivskIvano-Frankivsk
8. KharkivKharkiv
9. KhersonKherson
10. KhmelnytskyiKhmelnytskyi
11. KirovohradKropyvnytskyi
12. KyivKyiv
13. Kyiv OblastKyiv
14. LuhanskLuhansk
15. LvivLviv
16. MykolaivMykolaiv
17. OdesaOdesa
18. PoltavaPoltava
19. RivneRivne
20. SevastopolSevastopol
21. SumySumy
22. TernopilTernopil
23. VinnytsiaVinnytsia
24. VolynLutsk
25. ZakarpattiaUzhhorod
26. ZaporizhzhiaZaporizhzhia
27. ZhytomyrZhytomyr

Questions about these flags

Why are Kyiv and Sevastopol separate from the regions around them?

Both are cities with special status under Ukraine's constitution, listed alongside the twenty-four oblasts and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, so each has its own flag. Kyiv city flies the Archangel Michael on blue, while Kyiv Oblast, which surrounds the capital without including it, has the blue, yellow and blue triband. Sevastopol's red flag with the city arms is distinct from Crimea's plain tricolour.

What is the Cossack with a musket?

The emblem of the Zaporozhian Host, used on its seals and later on those of the Hetmanate: a Cossack in a long coat with a musket on his shoulder and a sabre at his side. Two oblasts on the former Cossack lands of the lower Dnipro carry him: Zaporizhzhia, in gold on crimson, and Dnipropetrovsk, in colour on white.

Do the oblast flags use the national blue and yellow?

Many do: Poltava, Lviv, Kyiv Oblast, Zakarpattia, Mykolaiv and Odesa are built on the two national colours. The regions with older banners kept their own: the crimson of the Cossack Host on Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and Kirovohrad, the red of Volhynia on Volyn and Rivne, green on Chernihiv and Chernivtsi, and the blue, white and red of Crimea.

More maps

Other maps: US states, Australian states, UK counties, French regions, Spanish 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.