4 More of the World’s Ugliest Flags

Last Updated on April 7, 2024 by Adam Watts

Since sharing some of the world’s ugliest flags here, unfortunately I’ve discovered some more seriously ugly flags. So in the interest of public safety, I wanted to write about 5 more of the ugliest flags. Grit your teeth and let’s dive in.

4. Nenets Autonomous District, Russia

I’ll be the first to admit that you’re not likely to accidentally set eyes upon this monstrosity in the course of your everyday life. To be honest, probably the only time you’ll ever see this flag is right here, right now on this blog. So for that I apologize.

The flag of Nenets Autonomous District looks like a Mario game that got abandoned after a day, then through a process I don’t care to know more about, the creation got selected to be the official flag of the district.

Among the 85 federal subjects of Russia, there are a lot of really bizarre-looking flags. Pick any adjective and I could probably have an entire post with options. “Most likely to have been taken from the page of a graphic novel”? Voronezh Oblast. “Most likely to be based on a coffee stain on the graphic designer’s desk?” Sakhalin Oblast.

3. Maryland, USA

I’ll be honest, sometimes I look at this flag and I don’t hate it. Sometimes.

Most times I look at it and I see two flags – one red and white, and one black and orange – locked in an eternal battle for dominance. Either that or the designer in charge really couldn’t decide between their top two choices and slapped both together in the last five minutes before deadline.

In my opinion, both patterns in this flag are grim, and the more I look at it the worse it gets, so let’s move quickly on.

2. Illinois, USA

The flag of Illinois falls into the trap of just being too much. There are a lot of details here and the closer you look, the more odd it gets.

The sun looks like it’s a mine exploding out at sea, the water has bubbles in it like some great sea creature is constantly farting, and worst of all, the word “sovereignty” is written upside down. What’s that about? And the words are the state motto, “State Sovereignty, National Union”, which is the worst motto I’ve ever heard. What does it mean, even?

And let’s talk about the dates. 1818 is when Illinois became an official state, which is great; a lot of US state flags have such a date. But 1868 is the year that the current seal was adopted, which seems like overkill. Nobody needs to know that, or at least they don’t need to have that date written on the flag. Let’s hope they never redesign it again and need to include a third date.

1. British Indian Ocean Territory, UK

Take a moment to admire this atrocity. Go on, hurt your retinas, I’ll wait.

The British Indian Ocean Territory comprises seven atolls, totaling a thousand or so islands, in the Indian Ocean between Indonesia and Tanzania, and it has no permanent residents. It’s hard to imagine a place in the world that sounds more idyllic.

To take a place that sounds so idyllic and represent it with a seriously ugly flag should be a crime. Or at least a stern talking to for whomever was responsible.

Part of the problem of course is that it uses the Union Jack, which isn’t exactly aesthetically pleasing on its own. And one notable design choice of the Union Jack is that it’s all straight lines. I’m no graphic designer but even I can tell that shoving that into a corner and pushing wavy lines next to it is jarring.

And the palm tree and crown look like ClipArt icons, again probably a result of the designer working to a deadline and running out of inspiration.

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What I’ve learned from more analysis of the world’s ugliest flags boils down to a few things:

1. Minimal is good.
2. Union Jack is bad.
3. Graphic designers are either lazy or overworked, I can’t tell which.

If you now want to recover by looking at some beautiful flags, here are 10 of the most beautiful flags.