Because it stands for a nation’s land, people, and government, a national flag is an important symbol for most countries. To better understand a country and its culture, we can learn what the different features of its flag represent.
As you can see below, most flags use at least one of seven colors. The popular colors are black, blue, green, orange, red, white, and yellow. Each color has certain meanings. For example, red means courage and white means freedom. The meanings can be different in each country. Stars on a flag might stand for a country’s states or provinces. In Arab nations, the colors black, green, red, and white show the Arabs’ unity as an ethnic group.
Other flags use pictures or symbols that represent important parts of a country’s identity. For example, the flag of Israel has the Star of David. That is a symbol of the Jewish people. The Mexican flag shows an eagle on a cactus holding a snake in its mouth. That symbol represents the history of the Aztec Empire in Mexico.
Let’s say you were designing a flag for a country of your own. What would you put on it?
