Last modified: 2006-03-04 by phil nelson
Keywords: ratio of flags | flag ratios | naval ensign | off-centered | scandinavian cross | golden section |
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My "holy book" (Whitney Smith, Flags Through the Ages and Across the World)
quotes for the United States' flags a 10:19 ratio, really closer to the 1:2 traditional
ratio of the British flags, from which the "Star Spangled Banner" comes.
In fact there are three main "threads" in the world of flags:
British flags have a 1:2 ratio (United Kingdom, Australia, Bahamas, Canada, Ireland and with the little correction of 10:19 United States and of course Liberia);
French flags have a 2:3 ratio (France, Italy, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Spain and the most of Latin-American flags);
German flags have a 3:5 ratio;
Moreover some nations have unusual ratios, as Denmark
(28:37) or Belgium (13:15).
Alessio Bragadini
The British ensigns (including the Union Jack) ratio varied with the standard breadth of the textile industry, but always retaining a length of 18:
Year | Ratio of Length to Breadth |
---|---|
1687-17xx | 11:18 |
17xx-1837 | 10:18 (5:9) |
1837-present | 9:18 (1:2) |
On the other hand, I'm not sure how strict this regulations would be followed in civilian rebellions taking place in faraway Australia, nor how fast they were enforced throughout the empire...
I don't know at what point after 1837 the proportions were actually regulated.
Possibly not until the reorganisation of Squadron colours in 1864.
David Prothero, 03 June 1999
Many flags, picture frames, book covers, etc., are proportioned in accordance
with what artists and mathematicians call "the golden section." This relationship
exists when the length and width of a rectangle are divided into extreme and
mean ratio, or when the parts follow (or approximate) the formula:
Another way to look at it is if the length and width roughly equal 62 and
38 percent of their sum respectively.
Lou Stewart, 1998 January 30
If you solve the equation Lou Stewart gave analytically,
you'll find a solution:
where:
Mathematically, there's another solution to this equation, namely
but I don't think we're looking for a flag with a negative length.
So, the ratio is 1.618
:1.
This ratio was already known to the Greeks, and the Acropolis reflects
this ratio in many ways (correct me if I'm wrong).
Filip Van Laenan, 1998 January 30
Let's try it this way:
the first format to think of is 1:1 (A:B), then we put the B as a new
A, and A+B as a new B. So next we'll get 1:2, and next 2:3 and 3:5 and
5:8 and 8:13 and 13:21 and 21:34 and 34:55 and 55:89 and so on... We'll
get closer and closer to 1.618 or something like that, the golden section.
It has been used a lot in art and Kepler spoke of 'divina proportio'.
It is mostly a proportion that 'looks nice'. Many mathematicians and physicists
have written about it.
Ole Andersen, 1998 January 30
1.1618
is phi the golden ratio and
is, like pi, irrational. However, if we look at the Fibonacci series we'll
see that the difference between each number gets closer and closer to
the ratio first over then under. The series is 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 ... where
each number is the sum of the previous two. You will also note that the
numbers are not far from many flag ratios 5:8 8:13 13:21 etc.
Rich Hansen, 1998 January 30
A more interesting approach uses the Golden Ratio's connection to the Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, , in which each new member of the sequence is the sum of the preceding two. Then, you can generate successive (and closer) approximations to the Golden Ratio as 1/1, 2/1, 3/2, 5/3, 8/5, 13/8,... where the numerator is just the member of the sequence that is one ahead of the denominator. (The two... approximations above are derived from this method, just a bit further along in the sequence).
An awful lot has been written about the Golden Ratio (also called 'The Divine Proportion'). It crops up in nature: shapes of shells, arrangements of sunflower seeds; in architecture (the most aesthetic shapes are ones having proportions equal to the Golden Ratio), and flags! It was known to the Ancient Greeks (look at a picture of the Parthenon), and probably earlier. Interesting it should show up in flag design too!
anonymous, 1999 February 03At least one flag used the "golden proportions"
as an integral part of its design: Saarland
Dave Martucci, 1998 January 30
No. There wasn't such flag manufactured in
Saarland. I don't know where the document which mentioned this was to
be found, but all the projects of laws of 1947 mentioned a flag with the
proportions 1 x 1,5, not 1 x 1,61803398875. If such flag was proposed
in Saarland, this was really absurd and ridiculous: how can you draw precisely
such a flag, and above all how can you manufacture such a flag: it is
impossible and not practical! If the flag existed it was only a proposition,
not a real flag.
Pascal Vagnat, 1999 February 05
New Brunswick's
isn't a national flag, but its 5:8 ratio is the closest approximation
you can get to the golden ratio with one-digit numbers. The designer probably
considered this when choosing the ratio. Any other flags with this ratio
were probably designed with the golden ratio in mind.
Dean Tiegs, 1999 February 05
Artists Bruno Tuukkanen and Eero Snellman
had the Golden Ratio in their mind when they designed the
Finnish flag. Ratio 11:18 = 0.6111
which
differs very little from 0.6180
Ossi Raivio, 1999 February 06
Chuvash Republic - the designer of this flag
artist Mr. E. Jurjev has specially made ratio of width and lengths of
a flag as golden ratio.
Mikhail Revnivtsev, 12 August 2005
The proportions of vertical stripes on
French naval flag are 30:33:37, to enable good visual
effect of flag when flying. Portugal, too, obviously,
has an off-centered pattern and I suppose the Scandinavian cross flags
have the same reason for the vertical bar shifted right.
Zeljko Heimer, 23 September 23 1995
Bangladesh,
North Korea, Nauru,
Turkey and the Japanese Ensign
all shift their designs to the hoist. Whitney Smith's book mentions that
Bangladesh does this so that the flag will look proper while flying. There
is no reason given for the others and in the case of Nauru especially
I suspect that the star is toward the hoist for some other reason.
Nathan Augustine, 27 September 1995
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
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 criuse 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