Talk:Lists of flags

Flag porting

The following text originated on Talk:WikiProject Countries and has been moved here.

The field labeled "Flag:" below the images of the flag and coat of arms is rather unclear. After further inspection of Netherlands and France it appears to be the name of the person who drew the particular image used (rather than my first two assumptions, the original designer of the flag or some bizarre nickname for the flag itself) and a reference to the web site from which it was taken. --Brion VIBBER

Flags from FOTW can be used freely as long as there is a reference to the site. What Wikipedia really needs is its own flags of course, homemade and under the proper license. Anybody wanna start the discussion on what sizes they should be? Oops, I think I just did...;) -Scipius

We can't be certain we'll have cited them properly, as anyone could come in and remove it.

Are the ones at e.g. The CIA site in good enough condition to use? (They're in the public domain.) --KQ 14:40 Aug 7, 2002 (PDT)

They appear to look fine (ratios and all). This could save us the trouble of making them ourselves, if they are indeed in the PD like the rest of the Factbook. The smaller size is smaller than our "small" size at the moment though, but that could of course also help in reducing table width. I've put up links to the Factbook flags (small and large) on the Netherlands page as a temporary example before we start adding them. Any comments? -Scipius

Hm, but now that you mention it, I think the text below that is what's determining the table width. Maybe one 50 pixels or so wider? I'm looking for public domain flag images.

Speaking of which, check this out: http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html (Another gov't site about countries, in the public domain--and more extensive than the CIA bits).

Whoops, someone found that one already. Let me show you this round thing I invented; you can do something with it I like to call "rolling".

I'm not having any luck finding larger images of country flags which are certainly in the public domain. --KQ

It is indeed the main table text that decides the width at the moment, but there's no immediate need for finding a certain size that would fit more properly. We can probably simply take the large size flags from the Factbook now and then resize those when we decide on a good smaller size (we could even have three sizes: large, small, mini?). At least we would have a good base flag for all countries. Agreed? -Scipius

I don't have any objections. --KQ

Very well, now all that remains is the issue of format. Shall we convert the original .jpg to .png? I realise this is a no-no according to image policy, but since these are flags rather than detailed photos, could it perhaps be possible? Also, some of the flags could have their colours a little brightened, so some minor work needs to be done on them. -Scipius

Ask LDC about it; he co-created the .PNG format.

Generally, one sould never convert JPEG to PNG. Once an image has been saved as a JPEG, the information has been lost; converting won't bring it back, and will usually just make it worse. Both the maps and the flags at the CIA site are incorrectly encoded as JPEG. The only way to get good quality PNGs would be to rescan them from paper, otherwise we might as well just use the poor-quality JPEGs as they are. A few of the maps there (called "reference maps") are available as PDFs--those can be made into high-quality PNGs by rendering the PDF at high resolution and producing a scaled down PNG from that. --LDC

First thing to consider is that each flag has its own proper ratio so you can nto just randomly do the flag it has to be in ratio. fir example the ratio for the union flag (union jack) is 1:2. - fonzy

Well, we could move the source of the flag image to another location. Creating your own flags is fine for simple flags like the Dutch one, but more complicated ones take more time, and we might as well use other sources as well. Jeronimo 14:37 Aug 7, 2002 (PDT)

I have created and uploaded the flag of Mauritius. <image has now been deleted>

Let's wait before you create any more, Fonzy. We could be adding flags for all countries very soon and the basic "small" size for use in the table still has to be decided. -Scipius

ok but as i ahve mention just abit before that diffrent flags have diffrent ratios teh ratio for that flag is 2:3 alot of flags are like that some liek th uk's flag is 1:2 others include 3:4 6:7, 3:5, 13:15 and more. So you cant state one default size for all flags. nto quite shore how to do it. - fonzy

I have tested it on the Spanish flag and I can't see any loss of quality from the conversion, so it would not be problem to use .png as the format. Shall we then use it or just stick to .jpg for convenience? Also, since I'll possibly be converting them all anyway, shall we agree on a good medium sized flag for the tables? Since we're aiming for tables of around 300px, I propose a flag of 135px in width, but any suggestions are more than welcome. Shall we perhaps have a few test examples? Another element would be the possible mini flag, but I'm not sure there's a need for them at this point, so they (and the debate on what size exactly) could wait.

Also, would it perhaps be a good idea to put the large image of the flag on a page of its own (Flag of <country>), detailing the name, history, etc. of the flag? I'd like to hear from you all. -Scipius

With the newer table layout we should probably aim for tables in the 250 to 300 pixle wide range - anything more than about 310 is way too wide for low res screens. I would therefore propose that flags and seals/coat of arms be no more than say 120 pixels wide. --mav

I'm not certain we'll even achieve the <300px mark for all tables, but we'll see. Besides, I don't want to leave to much empty space in the larger tables. Shall we make it 125px? -Scipius

or just dont have the flag on the table but have alink on it to a seprate page with it on. - fonzy

Well, we do need a flag in the table, that's kind of the idea for the medium sized flags. But we could have a link to the page containing the big flag below the medium flag, as suggested above. I'll wait for 24h before starting, and at least until Jeronimo chimes in. -Scipius

The flag is obviously a keeper, but do we really need the coat of arms / crest / seal? --Brion VIBBER

I was in doubt as well when editing France, but that country appears to be the exception in having no national coat of arms. It is a nice bit of information that seems ideal for the table. I vote for leaving them in, though the ones present need to be resized to 125px like the flags. -Scipius

I agree with Scipius about keep the coat/seal - most countries have this or something equivalent (maybe even France if we look hard enough). Also 125 px wide for both is fine. --mav

About the flags, I agree with fonzy that we should try to keep the right aspect ratio of the flags; that shouldn't prevent us from using a fixed width, but some flags (the exceptional cases of Switzerland and Nepal) will be a little big in height. Individual flag pages would be great as well for most of the flags, so we could have a big picture there. As for the coats of arms, I like them to stay, even though not every country has one (France really doesn't have one), but some other countries may not have a capital (or three), no official language, etc. The table shouldn't be fixed for every appearance, but it should contain about the same info. Jeronimo

It is agreed then to have .png images of 452px (or whatever the Factbook has) and 125px in width and a page describing the flag in some detail? I'll start working on them tomorrow at the earliest (it's nearing bed-time ;)), so I can now propose a final element: the name. I suggest simply <country>_flag_large and <country>_flag_medium (all without caps), leaving <country>_flag_small for the possible future mini flags. This is in part to have a flag naming convention, in case anyone else decides I shouldn't have all the fun ;) Yes/No/Silent Approval? -Scipius

do you want me to give you the ratios of the flags you plan to do? only prob is my flag book is quite out of date (well the one with the ratios in) but alot of flags are still the same. - fonzy

Most of the Factbook flags already have different ratios, so it's very well possible that they're already in the correct proportions. I'll be checking with the FOTW site for the right colours anyway (as well as "official" pages), so I can check for ratios there as well. However, should there still be doubt I'll ask you, and you can certainly check them yourself once they're uploaded. Thanks! -Scipius

Re: Scipius - also consider the name of the flag articles. For most "(National?) Flag of X" will do fine, but some flags are more commonly known by their (nick)names: Union Jack, Star-spangled banner.

Re: Fonzy - check out http://www.fotw.ca/ - you should be able to find all current ratios of national flags there. Jeronimo

UNION FLAG!!!! altough yes it is more commonly known asd the union jack but its consider pedantic to call it the union flag anyway union jack is fine . fonzy.

As the response by Fonzy shows, that could be a bone of contention as well. I would suggest to simply stick to the Flag of <country> format and explain the whole history of the flag and other names for it on that page, with the other names being redirections to it. We can probably get quite a meaty article out of some of them. Agreed? -Scipius

Yeah, Flag of x would be fine, with redirects for the flag name(s). You're right fonzy, it's really Union Flag, but that's almost never used, not even by most British themselves. Jeronimo

True most peole in the uk dotn even know that. i can do the artciles on the flags. i do have the books on it. Try and get the original Union Flag too as you woul need that to explain the history of it. - fonzy PS i thought though we were going to make our own flags?

I've started adding them now. You can now edit to your heart's content on the Flag of the United Kingdom... ;) -Scipius

Status of flag porting:

I've finished doing the letter A and several major countries, which had a template table in them. Afghanistan has not been added since the Factbook flag is apparently out-of-date with the Taleban overthrow. Other flags have had their colours adjusted (whatever detergent the CIA uses to wash their flags, it is murder on the blues ;)) -Scipius 12-08-2002

B, C and D are done. The flag for the Comoros has not been added, the Factbook one is now out of date. -Scipius 13-08-2002

E, F, G, H, I, J, K and L have been completed. The flag for Guadeloupe has not been added since this is merely the flag of the local independence party according to FOTW. The Vatican flag is only 100px wide, it would otherwise be much higher than other flags. -Scipius 14-08-2002

M, N, O, Q and R are added. Martinique not (yet) added since it is only the unofficial flag. Rwanda was not converted, since this country has changed the design of its flag in 2001. The flag for Nepal is only 80px wide due to its unique shape. -Scipius 15-08-2002

After having been disconnected from the Net for a week, I have now completed the flag porting with the addition of P, S, T, U, V, (W), Y and Z. The flags for Saint Pierre and Miquelon and Wallis and Futuna were not included on account of them being only local flags, with the latter also having an incorrect design. Somalia was not added because of the uncertain situation in that "country". The flag for Switzerland is again 100px wide, since it's a rectangular flag. -Scipius 24-08-2002

The list

I have now started assembling a list with links to all the flag images, as well as explaining how to use them in articles, intended to make a repository for all flags. Only the letter A (including adding an extended description in the Image: page itself) has been done for now, awaiting any comments others may have. -Scipius 25-08-2002

put a mini-flag next to the name of the country. btw (the former republic of macadonia), Macedonia is only known as that in the UN its proper official name is Republic of Macedonia or maybe just dont have a link to the small size just put the small size next to the name. - fonzy

Yes, the "small" name has been reserved for just that kind of mini-flag, but I think we can wait on creating those until after we have sorted out the rest of the flag situation on Wikipedia. E.g., we would need to determine just what size they should be. -Scipius

Is there any place on this page for political flags, e.g. image:blkred_flag.png DanKeshet

Sure, but let's first wait until I've finished linking all the national flags. There are quite a few other flags around that will also need to be added, but I'm not yet sure in what form exactly (i.e. should there be some resizing and such?) Anyone have any ideas? -Scipius

The flags of US states, Canadian provinces and territories, and assorted others like the rainbow flag and the Esperanto flag are also available. P.S.: do we mean to include names of flags (like Old Glory, Union Jack, Maple Leaf Flag, Fleurdelisé, Dannebrog)? - user:Montrealais

Now, I'm ready to start replacing existing national flags (that come in all different sorts of sizes, colours and locations with the ones that have now been added. I'm assuming I can be bold in this, since they aren't necessary any longer (the country articles will be replaced by the template at some point anyway and the standard flag is the only one fit for it). However, this will also leave a lot of orphaned images, which mostly can now be safely deleted. Is anyone willing to help out there and assist me in doing this or, alternatively, could I be granted the ability to do this myself? Either option is fine by me. Thanks for any pointers anyone can give. -Scipius

I just made you a sysop so you'll be able to delete images if needed--just don't get too delete-happy. If you have any doubt, just add a note to the image that you think it's deletable, and if the other sysops agree, it will get deleted--or else they won't agree, and say why. I'm also planning an upgrade to the delete functions soon--there are some odd bugs with images sometimes. --LDC

Thanks very much, LDC. I'll only be deleting flag images anyway for the moment, I'll leave the other sysop options for when I know a bit more about them (is there any procedure I should follow now?). I'll get to the task over the weekend, but could you say what I can expect in terms of bugs or are they too random to pinpoint? -Scipius

All the medium sized flags have now found a page to call their home. The large ones will find a place once the template will be put in place. I have deleted various flag images that were uploaded locally, including a number of orphaned ones. There are however also a large number of links removed to images that are located on the Meta-server. I have no idea what should happen to those and whether or not they are in use elsewhere, so I'll leave it at that. -Scipius

I am not not really happy with some of the flags with detail some don't look right. (ok roughly right) but i would if i could draw (in any sence) make them look better. - fonzy

Well, could you be specific? Naturally, these flags aren't perfect, but it was exactly the detail of the artwork contained in some that would have been the hard part, should we have decided to make our own. Some of the CIA's work could use improvement, but it certainly is sufficient. -Scipius

well i see Wikipedia as something that should have v.acurate(ok not to begin with but gradually improving) information so just ok is not enough. It should be as acurate as possible. So keep the present flags for the moment but anyone who is good at art and vexiology can work togetehr and improve on the dteail - fonzy

Other flags

I've added most of the other flags I could find in the image list, but I'm not sure what we should do with them. Should we agree to a common size for them, adapt them to the medium size of the other flags or leave them be alltogether? Also, should we give links to images on the Meta-server or (as I would say) wait until they are uploaded locally? -Scipius

From User talk:isis: I wish I caught Scipius before he uploaded all the large images. Those images really are huge --mav

Actually, I too feel the large flags are probably somewhat too big. The reason they are that size is not some preference on my part, but because that's how large the original large flag .jpgs from the Factbook are. Given that we hadn't discussed it, I figured to just go ahead and add the large flags at their full Factbook size, also considering that it's easier to scale-down images than scale-up, should that be necessary.

Most flags are 450 px in width and some 300 in height, several are wider than that, but rarely higher. In the case of simple tricolours and such a reduction would be most welcome, but we risk to lose the finer details found in flags with coats of arms or intricate designs. Rather than basing all large flags on a fixed width (which is required for the medium flags that must fit in the table), perhaps we could downsize all "simple" flags to, say, a height not exceeding 200 px (since width does not matter here), and leave the "detailed" ones at their present size of 300 px in height? Shall I make a few examples of a detailed flag at various sizes so we can compare?

In other news, the Factbook has been updated for 2002 (for the flags, see here), which also means we now have the missing flags of Afghanistan, the Comoros and Rwanda. The Factbook now posts their flags as .gifs, but they don't seem to have improved their designs at all, so I don't think a complete re-upload will be necessary at this point. Scipius 15:27 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)

I think width and not height is the most important thing here. I resized Image:Us flag large.png from nearly 600 px wide to 400 which is the max width suggested by Wikipedia:Image use policy. Even on the flag pages we could still have media links to the huge images via larger image centered and under the flag. Mock-ups would be most welcome. --mav

Well, if 400 px is the maximum width by policy, then I don't think we need mock-ups. 400 px max width it is then. I'll get to it over time, but others are welcome to help ;) Scipius 20:04 Nov 3, 2002 (UTC)

There are now many articles listed as Flag of XXXX, which are only linked from the relevent country. This page seems the appropriate place to put such a list but it does overlap somewhat with National Flags, so do you think they should go here?

That thought had occured to me. I would suggest that it would perhaps be best to have the list of <Flag of x> articles at National flag, since those articles are really only about national flags. The tables here are wide enough (not to mention a whole mess of characters internally) as it is, so a simple list elsewhere would be clearer and easier. We can then prominently link to the National flag article from this article and limit this list to just flag images. -Scipius 20:55 Dec 11, 2002 (UTC)

I'd like to add some historical flags for countries or regions which no longer exist as separate entities - Prussia, East Prussia, Orkney, and so on. Should those go into "historical flags", I assume? Also, how are state flags going to be organized; in alphabetical order after the country they're in, I assume? Is there any reason I shouldn't put some state flags in where they logically would go? I don't want to stomp on anyone's notions of how the page should be organized, I just want to get a few dozen flags out there for specific pages I'm writing. -- WikiDave

Can someone add the U.N. flag? Kingturtle 12:20 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)