This article was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination: no consensus, default to keep, 7 May 2018, see discussion. no consensus, 13 March 2017, see discussion.

This page was proposed for deletion by Kaldari (talk · contribs) on 25 February 2017. It was contested by Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason (talk · contribs) on 2017-03-14

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Heraldry and vexillology List of flags by number of colors is within the scope of the Heraldry and vexillology WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of heraldry and vexillology. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.Heraldry and vexillologyWikipedia:WikiProject Heraldry and vexillologyTemplate:WikiProject Heraldry and vexillologyheraldry and vexillology articles

The flag of Mexico is also missing, though it's kind of hard to count how many colors is in it, because the shades in the coat of arms on the flag.193.167.144.30 (talk) 10:51, 13 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I noticed the flag of Costa Rica is not mentioned in this article. I'll try to fix it as soon as possible.

Look at the bottom of Talk:List of flags by color. It all began with the fact that the "Yellow" part of that article was renamed "Gold", and there was a link to "Yellow" that says "See Gold". However, shortly afterward, it turned out that "gold" and "yellow" were being used as 2 separate sections. I thought we needed a discussion about merging the 2 sections into one called "Gold/Yellow", but later on, somebody thought that the flags should be grouped into areas like "Green", "Green/White", "Green/White/Red", etc. Any comments?? 66.32.240.129 14:00, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)liers dont lie to the public

Compare the green of the horizontal band with the green of the tree. They aren't the same shade, are they? In that case the flag of Equatorial Guinea has 9 colours, not 8: Green (band), white, red, blue, yellow, black, light brown, dark brown, and green (tree). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.16.216.220 (talk) 14:29, 19 June 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I listed montenegrin under 4 colours flags: it has red, golden, blue and green. However, there are 2 niances of Golden colour. does it makes as 5-colour flag?Stefke (talk) 23:57, 1 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I noticed that their Flag is not present. Also, would it be considered bicoloured or tricoloured because of the white stripes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.55.216.169 (talk) 16:11, 10 May 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallery_of_triband_flags describes it as a "Fimbriated diagonal bicolor triband" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.55.216.169 (talk) 16:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The flag of Uruguay is not included in the list.

The flag of Zimbabwe is not included in the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.16.216.220 (talk) 14:44, 19 June 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Should we have any standard for flags with gradients on them? The belize flag, for instance; if the picture we have is to be believed, the chests of the two men are shaded in such a way that if you were to enumerate all the distinct colors used in the RGB representation of the flag you'd even up with hundreds of colors, not to mention the fact that RGB can only approximate a gradient and the real number would be truly infinite. Currently we have it listed as 12. Thoughts on how it "should" be? 97.94.188.47 (talk) 10:43, 4 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Gave it some thought, looked through the others. Belize seems to be the only example of this. I'm going to be WP:Bold and change it to read "uncountable". If you revert me, I'd appreciate if you'd give at least a few words of reasoning either in the edit summary or here. 97.94.188.47 (talk) 10:48, 4 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

right as I went to edit, I saw that Mexico is in the same camp, and was handled in the article with a ≥ sign. Seems reasonable to me. 97.94.188.47 (talk) 10:52, 4 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Shouldn't the Wales flag be in the 4 colors section, since the line around the dragon is black, and not white or green or red? 200.153.227.138 (talk) 02:39, 31 October 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What line? In a flag, rather than a drawing, it should have no outline. —Tamfang (talk) 23:57, 31 October 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It is not simply an outline. Take a look in the dragon's eyes. They are black! 187.101.154.224 (talk) 19:12, 2 November 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What is the benefit of the example flags? It's clear from the section headings how many colors there are. I suggest that to promote the flags of specific countries, and to single out horizontally striped flags, both confusing and an attractive nuisance for POV vandals. Ibadibam (talk) 22:48, 22 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In an attempt to cut down on the WP:INDISCRIMINATE content, which of the following should or should not be included, and how should they be classified? 198.84.253.202 (talk) 20:20, 27 May 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Part I - Scope

Answer as either "Yes", "No", or "No with exceptions" for each category individually
1. Current national flags (and flags of other notable international entities, i.e. UN, EU, NATO, etc)
2. Historical national flags (ex. a historical flag would not be the previous version of a national flag, but the flag of a nation which no longer exists, ex. Austria-Hungary)
3. Provincial/state/other highest level subdivision flags (ex. German Länder like Saxony, Canadian provinces like Ontario, US states like Iowa, Swiss cantons, French Régions like Île-de-France, etc...)
4. Municipal level flags (ex. from what is already in the article, Flag of the City of London, Zwolle, Flag of Washington, D.C.)
5. Flags which do not represent any form of geographical entity (ex. Rainbow flag)

Part II - Variants and military forces

6. Should variant flags (for example, the two variants of the Flag of Austria) be included separately, or not?:
Answers should be something along the lines of Yes, always; or Yes, but only for military forces (ex. naval ensigns, air forces); or No, but allow exceptions (ex. the White Ensign); or No, never

Part III - Classification

7. Should colours in seals/coat of arms/etc... be counted or not (No means that only "principal colours" are counted, thus for example the Flag of Haiti would be counted as having only 2 colours)?

Survey

• 1 and 2: Yes, 3 and 4: No, 5: Exceptions To avoid being indiscriminate and to keep the list to a reasonable size. // 6: No, but allow exceptions Again, to keep the content to a minimum - the main flag of country is usually enough, and there is no point in including multiple variants of each unless they are significantly different (for example, the variant state flag of Austria isn't significantly different) or are otherwise well known (i.e. the White Ensign, having been used by the Royal Navy for centuries). // 7: No Keep !voters in the AfD (which closed as no consensus) said this article would be a useful way for people to find a flag (knowing nothing else than the number of colours it has). Regardless of the merit of that claim, if we do want to make this useful, we should list flags using their most recognizable features. Using a different example than the one in the RfC question, the Flag of Ecuador is most prominently a tricolour, and somebody looking to find it would be unlikely to know the exact number of colours it contains if the coat of arms are included. 198.84.253.202 (talk) 20:20, 27 May 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Broader question: Why? What purpose does this list serve at all? This doesn't appear to be an encyclopedic topic in the first place, unless there's a strong vexillology rationale for it. I'm aware of the color restrictions in blazonry (which vary by heraldic system, e.g. English, French, etc.), but the modern connection between flags and coats of arms is tenuous at best. Flags today tend to be created by design committees, and voted on by the people [or elected representatives thereof] of the place they're intended to fly over, if not just chosen by fiat.

  If the article should be retained, I would say 1–5: yes; 6: yes; 7: yes (the list won't be comprehensive otherwise, with regard to 6 and 7). I don't see any need for any particular restrictions, unless and until the list becomes so long that it's problematic. It presently is not, and is much more compact that many list articles we have. If it did become unwieldy, the answer would be a WP:SPLIT, not arbitrary deletion of content. In the interim, use more subsections. About the only limitation that makes obvious sense is that a flag that doesn't represent anything notable and is not itself notable should not be included, per WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE. I.e., our readers do not care about the flag of your son's little league baseball team.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:01, 28 May 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Survey 2

• I've almost finished a comprehensive review of all national flags (see flag of Belize as an example). IMO, current national flags should be separated out from organisations sub divisions and historic flags. I don't mind if they have their own page or separate section. The coats of arms make this interesting but also complicated so I suggest numbering national flags by 'main colours' and 'all colours including coat of arms'. for example, Guatemala would be 2 (blue and white) and 16 as the flag has 16 colours in total. The result would be a far less ambiguous page with actual useful and correct information. Sub national, historical and organisational flags can be worked on later. Any thoughts before I make the changes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Project Lost (talk • contribs) 18:10, 27 November 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  Please read Wikipedia's policy on original research. Nosferattus (talk) 14:31, 23 April 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

• This and List of flags by color combination should probably be taken back to AfD. The color-combo one was kept in a 2014 AfD, but I'm skeptical that it would be today, given the arguments brought against the number of colors one. Two more recent AfDs on that one narrowly came to "no consensus" largely on no basis other than that the color-combo one wasn't deleted earlier. I.e., this is circular reasoning. Both should be nominated again at the same time and with the same rationales, for concurrent discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:12, 28 May 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@SMcCandlish: Do you mean a batch nomination one page for the both? —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 11:32, 11 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Serial Number 54129: I don't spend enough time in AfD to know if we even do those. I do related pages back to back; AfD seems to want a separate AfD page for each nominated page, but I haven't looked into it beyond noticing that. About two weeks ago I did related back-to-back ones, and that seemed to work well.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:59, 11 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Whichever way you're happy with of course​—but this is what I was thinking of. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 12:10, 11 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

(edit conflict) Perfectly possible to nominate more than one page on one nomination. Nominate the first page for deletion (i.e. create the deletion discussion) then copy the AFD notice from Page A to Page B, and add Page B on Page A's AFD itself. Primefac (talk) 12:12, 11 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sounds good. A risk is that if one page might be more likely to be kept than another, it could cloud things (e.g., people might just respond with "keep" when one should be deleted and one kept). Doesn't seem like an applicable concern in this case.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:56, 11 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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The Spanish flag is listed under the category of having 3 colours. If you look at the flage though, it has at least 6:

red yellow green blue pink black

And arguably maybe 7 in that the shade of yellow in the flower at the bottom is a paler shade of yellow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cdgillie (talk • contribs) 22:04, 19 May 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

is listen under 3 colours but icon showing standard 2-colour national flag.

based on the wiki, i think the WRONG FLAG is displayed there. navy indeed uses a 3-colour flag with a big anchor on it.

i hesitate to "be bold" -- i will defer to someone who knows for sure. but SOMETHING is wrong as it sits now. 66.30.47.138 (talk) 01:43, 3 January 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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