About Vexillogasm

Vexillogasm is a flag encyclopedia: every national flag, the colours it uses, where those colours came from, and how they compare with one another. This page explains where the data comes from, how it is checked, and what to do when we get something wrong.

Where the data comes from

  • Country facts — names, official names, ISO 3166 codes, regions, subregions, capitals and internet domains come from the REST Countries dataset.
  • Flag artwork — the SVG for each flag is drawn from public-domain files published on Wikimedia Commons.
  • Colour data — the named colours and hex values attached to each flag are read off that artwork and maintained here. They are our own work, and they are the part of this site most likely to contain mistakes.
  • Coats of arms — sourced from mainfacts.com and self-hosted.

How flags are kept current

Flags change, usually when governments do. When a national flag is altered or replaced, we update the artwork, the colour data and the written history together, and cite the source on the country's page. Recent examples include Syria, whose green-white-black flag with three red stars was formally designated by the Constitutional Declaration of 13 March 2025, and Honduras, which returned to navy blue on 27 January 2026.

Where a flag is genuinely disputed we say so rather than pick a side. Afghanistan is the clearest case: the Taliban's white Shahada flag has been flown inside the country since 15 August 2021, while the black-red-green tricolour remains the flag used at the United Nations. Both appear on Afghanistan's page, with dates.

What we know we get wrong

Being useful means being honest about the edges of the data:

  • Colour names are approximations. Each flag colour is matched to the nearest common colour name, so a flag listed under “crimson” may look red to you. The hex values are the precise figures; the names are a convenience.
  • Colour pages group shades. A page such as blue gathers every flag using a shade of blue, not only those recorded with the exact word. That is deliberate.
  • Aspect ratios are not modelled. Flags are drawn to their common proportions, and a few official ratios are not reflected.
  • Written histories are being reviewed. Some of the flag histories on this site predate our current sourcing standards, and a review is under way to verify them against primary references.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, we would rather know. Tell us what the page says, what it should say, and where you found it, and we will fix the page or explain why we have not. Report a correction.

Sourcing and editorial policy last updated .