Since we are talking about flag proportions, I was wondering if the proportions
are ever symbolic in and of themselves, or always more or less arbitrary. (Let's
leave oddballs like Nepal and Qatar out for the moment.) This question arises from
the question of why it's so important to keep the proportions right. For instance,
Ron pointed out that many of the errors are caused by standardizations of the flag
manufacturing process. Earlier, someone said that all the flags of the former Soviet
Union kept to the proportions of the old Hammer and Sickle. Similarly, looking at
my flag chart, all the flags of the former Yugoslavia seem to be more or less the
same proportions. I'm willing to bet that this is a result less of nostalgia for
the old days and more of the fact that it was easier to leave the settings on the
flag-making machines as is....
Thus, I ask again, why is it important to keep proportions straight? Colors and
symbols have meanings which it would wrong to alter, but if proportions are chosen
arbitrarily...
Josh Fruhlinger, 29 January 1996
One pair of flags that differ only in their proportions are those of Indonesia (2:3) and Monaco (4:5). Of course, I don't know whether the proportions have significance in themselves, but they have significance in relation to each other in that they are the only way to distinguish the two flags.
I'm having a hard time thinking of a real-world situation in which these two
countries' flags could be confused, though. (Shipwrecked sailors wash up on an unfamiliar
shore; "What country are we in?" "Must be Indonesia -- look at that flag." "Yes,
and that big building up there must be the famous Djakarta Casino!")
Bruce Tindall, 29 January 1996
The UJ family is shaped 1:2 and I suppose that with "commercial reasons" a flagmaker has to provide the correct ratio for those and other flags, otherwise he'll keep sitting on his stuff (standardization of production would suggest a general 2:3 ratio and I think there is quite a bunch of 2:3 flags just for this reason).
I place my questions earlier: at the time before mass production, when
design and measurements of a flag are layed down. I'd like to look over the shoulders
of those in past and present who are in charge of creating a flag or who elaborate
the demands for the designers. Why did they choose 1:2 or 2:3? I tried to give some
reasons for the 2:3 / 3:5 choice but very probably there are more. Seafaring nations
may have old maritime flag traditions for example. Maybe some documents could tell
more about it.
Martin Karner, 13 January 2005
It seems that manufacturers like to pick a ratio, and make all their flags 2:3, or all 1:2 or whatever. Remember the comments about the latest Georgia State flag: they said if it was 1:2, it would be longer than the US flag, since the Stars & Stripes is de facto made in 2:3. Canadian (or at least British Columbia) city flags are primarily made in 1:2, even if the Heralds' illustration shows a 2:3 flag.
2:3 Canadian flag
![[Canadian flag 2:3]](../images/c/ca!2x3.gif)
image by Martin Grieve, 4 December 2005
modified by Dean McGee, 13 January 2006
While a display like the UN's may look better with the flags to a uniform size, many designs look 'wrong' when they're in the wrong proportion. British Columbia's flag is often made in 1:2, which stretches out the setting sun to look like a banana with a crown, and Canadian flags in 2:3 have too much white above and below the Maple Leaf.
The original message centred around a Bahamian-flagged cruise ship which belonged
to an American-run company. They probably ordered their flags from a company which
uses 2:3 as its standard, or maybe they order their flags 4" x 6" without thinking
about proportions. I have to say that to my eye, horizontally striped flags like
Bahamas, Malaysia and
US are not as noticably 'wrong' when the proportions are wrong.
Dean McGee, 13 January 2006
According to "major" flag makers I have spoken with about this very subject, the issue is "automation" for lack of a better word.
It is rare in the west nowadays for a flag maker to have large numbers of folks who are genuinely skilled in the craft of making fully sewn flags with the exception of perhaps said company's national flag. When flag makers do have such folk on staff, those capable of making other things, they pay a premium price to keep them around. The cost is passed down to the customer.
Automation means certain standards are set for all flags whether proportionally correct or not.
I have seen (probably) the same afore mentioned Bahamas ensign while I was in Venice. When I got up close to the cruise ship, I noticed that the canton was printed and the rest of the parts were joined together. This was a much cheaper way of making the ensign a opposed to having everything custom sewn.
Most likely, the Bahamian ensign in Venice was American made, meaning it was fairly inexpensive compared to European flags.
It has been a while since I was in the Bahamas, but when I was there, I rarely
saw any kind of flag or ensign proportioned 1:2. Almost everything with the exception
of a very few government flags were 2:3 or 3:5 and Annin or Dettra made. Come to
think of it, I don't recall ever seeing a 1:2 Bahamian red ensign in Bahamian waters.
Clay Moss, 13 January 2006
I can tell some ideas on the flag size question for Austria-Hungary, and I think that flag ratio is somewhat related to this.
Austro-Hungarian maritime flags originally were made of stripes of 48 cm height, called "Kleid" (plural "Kleider"), so the height of the flag was a multiple of 48 cm (approx.) [bmg77]
This is most probably typical for other countries as well, that one unit was
based on a more or less standardized measure of cloth available. The other side
would be any measure convenient for manufacture, either determined by the length
of available cloth, or by the size of the manufacturing facilities, or simply by
some easily measurable proportion (1:2 or 2:3 rather than say 4:7).
Marcus E.V. Schmöger, 5 February 2006
There was a question why flags are lowered during
the night and I guessed that this has to do primarily with the
preservation of the flag material. Since the winds on the sea and in
coastal regions are harder and more constant, flags are lowered when
they are not seen, i.e. on the high seas and during the night. In
landlocked countries the flags are not lowered at night because the
winds are less hard. This corresponds perfectly to your remarks. In
addition to Marcus' production points we thus have three climatic
factors which may have been in favour of longer flags in maritime
regions: the rough winds which consume the cloth from the fly
towards the hoist, the easiness to repair a long flag and the
absence of the problem that a long flag flies less easily than a
short one.
Martin Karner, 6 February 2006
Longer flags (e.g., 1:2) may have been more
useful for seafaring nations because of the old method of repairing
weather-damaged flags on board ship (which was IIRC to cut off a strip
from the fly to repair any damage). A long flag could therefore be
repaired more readily. On land, this became less of a problem because
new flags could be more readily obtained, and the dynamics of
flag-flying (which ISTR say that a shorter flag will fly more easily)
may have come into play in the design. For that reason, it would make
sense if countries with naval traditions favoured longer flags, and
landlocked countries favoured shorter flags. Of course, this doesn't
explain why countries like the Netherlands prefer shorter flags, but it
might explain the UK and its possessions, and also countries like
Switzerland.
James Dignan, 5 February 2006
It is thought that British naval flags attained a ratio of 1 : 2 through carelessness.
17th century English naval ensigns were made from material that was about eleven
inches wide. It was stipulated that the length of a flag should be eighteen times the
number of widths of material used to make the flag. The ratio at that time was
therefore 11 : 18. Over the years, for reasons that I have never seen explained,
the width of the material used to make flags was reduced, but no corresponding
adjustment was made to the stipulated length. The length of the flags thus
increased relative to their width. By about 1840 the width of the material had been
reduced to nine inches, giving a ratio of 8 : 18. Standard sizes were now introduced,
in which the length was twice the width.
David Prothero, 6 February 2006
According to Pepys writing in the last half of the 17th Century "It is in general to be noted that the bewper (bunting) from which colours are made being 22 inches (approx 56cm) in breadth and half of that breadth or 11 inches in ordinary discourse by the name of a breadth being wrought into colours, every such breadth is allowed half a yard (18 inches or approx 46cm) for its fly".
If the flag sizes given for 1742 may be cited as evidence the 'breadth' had
decreased to 10 inches by that date, and a surviving 20 foot x 40 foot White
Ensign of 1787 (not counting an Establishment of 1822) seems to indicate
that the breadth had reduced yet again to its modern width of 9 inches by
the later 18th Century?
Christopher Southworth, 6 February 2006
