Flags of North America

How to play

1. Press Start. You have 2 minutes, 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 North America

North America here means Canada, the United States and Mexico, the seven countries of Central America and the thirteen island nations of the Caribbean, and their flags tell three different stories.

Five Central American countries were once a single federation, and their flags still show it. Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua keep its blue, white and blue stripes, running down on Guatemala’s flag and across on the others, and Costa Rica added a red stripe through the middle. The five stars on Honduras’s flag stand for the federation’s five members.

Most Caribbean flags are younger, adopted at independence between the 1960s and the 1980s, and bolder: Jamaica’s gold diagonal cross on green and black, the overlapping triangles of Saint Lucia, the parrot at the center of Dominica’s. Cuba’s blue and white stripes with a red triangle are older, from the 19th century, and Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, both use blue and red.

The three large countries are quick for most players. The time goes on the smaller island flags, and on the Central American stripes, which differ only in their emblems.

Which flags are in the quiz

North America follows the UN’s grouping of countries, as in Countries of North America, and includes Central America and the Caribbean. Greenland, Puerto Rico and Bermuda belong to larger countries, 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

Central America’s blue and white stripes make one set of near-twins. Here is how to tell them apart. The list shows each flag with its name, so it starts closed.

Show the look-alike flags

Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador

Blue, white and blue in horizontal stripes, the colors of the old federation. Honduras puts five blue stars on the white, and its flag is the longest, 1 by 2. Nicaragua and El Salvador both put a triangle with five volcanoes in the middle. Nicaragua’s sits in a ring of gold lettering; El Salvador’s is framed by a green laurel wreath with blue and white flags behind it.

Questions

Which flags here show an animal?

Two do. Mexico’s has a golden eagle on a cactus with a snake in its beak, from the legend of the founding of Tenochtitlan, and Dominica’s has a Sisserou parrot, the national bird, inside a ring of green stars.

More geography

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