Flags of Africa

How to play

1. Press Start. You have 4 minutes 30 seconds, and the flags come in a new order every game.
2. Type the country of the highlighted flag. It counts as soon as the name matches, and the next flag lights up.
3. Only the highlighted flag counts: type another country and you’re told it isn’t that one. Tap a flag, or press Tab, to switch.
4. When time is up, the missed flags turn red, and you can practice them.

About the flags of Africa

Most African flags were adopted at independence, from the 1950s onward, and many belong to one of two color families. The first is green, yellow and red, taken from the flag of Ethiopia, admired across the continent for keeping its independence through the colonial era. Ghana, one of the first African colonies to become independent, chose those colors in 1957, and many others followed, among them Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Cameroon, Benin, Togo and Burkina Faso.

The second family is red, black and green, the colors of Marcus Garvey’s pan-African movement, seen on the flags of Kenya, Malawi and South Sudan. North Africa follows other traditions. Egypt, Sudan and Libya use the pan-Arab colors, red, white, black and green, while Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia carry a star or a crescent.

With so many shared colors, the details carry the answer: the order of the stripes, whether they run across or down, and the star, emblem or triangle that one flag adds and its neighbor leaves out. Some of the hardest pairs aren’t even both African, as the look-alikes below show.

Which flags are in the quiz

Africa follows the UN’s grouping of countries, as in Countries of Africa: every member state on the continent and its islands. Western Sahara and Somaliland aren’t UN members, so their flags aren’t in it.

Spelling and alternative names

Capitals, accents and punctuation don’t matter, but the spelling has to be right. Well-known alternative names count too:

Look-alike flags

Two of Africa’s hardest flags have a twin in Europe. In this quiz only the African one counts, and typing the European name gets a “Not” and clears the field. The list shows each flag with its name, so it starts closed.

Show the look-alike flags

Mali, Guinea and Senegal

Green, yellow and red in vertical stripes. Mali’s run green, yellow, red from the flagpole, and Guinea’s run the other way, red, yellow, green. Senegal keeps Mali’s order and adds a green star in the yellow.

Chad and Romania

Blue, yellow and red in vertical stripes, in the same 2 by 3 shape. Only the blue differs: Chad’s is a darker indigo, Romania’s a brighter cobalt. Romania isn’t in this quiz, but it is in Flags of Europe.

Côte d’Ivoire and Ireland

Orange, white and green in vertical stripes, with orange at the flagpole for Côte d’Ivoire. Ireland’s flag, in Flags of Europe, has the same colors the other way round and is longer.

Questions

Which flag in this quiz shows a rifle?

Mozambique’s: a rifle with a bayonet crossed with a hoe, over an open book, on a yellow star. It is one of very few national flags to show a modern weapon.

More geography

• Countries of Africa: the same countries, named from memory on the map
• Capitals of Africa: the same countries, naming their capitals
• Flags of the World: all 197 at once
• Other continents: Flags of Asia, Flags of Europe, Flags of North America, Flags of South America, Flags of Oceania

More to play

• Countries of the World: Type every country you can before the clock runs out.
• Capitals of the World: Name the capital of every country before the clock runs out.
• Periodic Table: Name every chemical element before the clock runs out.
• Element Symbols: Name the chemical element behind every symbol.
• Flags of the World: Name the country from its flag.
• All quizzes
• El Trivia home