5 of The World’s Ugliest Flags

Last Updated on April 15, 2024 by Adam Watts

Are you tired of seeing the same old beautiful flags of the world? I sure am. That’s why I put myself through a lot of pain looking for the world’s ugliest flags. I was hoping some of them would be so bad they’re good — but no, these things are hideous no matter at first, fifth and fiftieth glance.

So let’s get right to it. I’m going to rip the band-aid off and just show you the world’s ugliest flag, because I hate those lists that make you scroll to the bottom to the get to the top rank. Life is short, man.

The World’s Ugliest Flag is… British Columbia

There’s no competition in my mind. This is it. The worst of the worst. British Columbia, congratulations, you have the ugliest flag in the world. I’ll get to some other flags I’m not a fan of later, but none of them come close to this monstrosity.

There’s a Union Jack flag (or just Union Flag, if you prefer) at the top that is seriously stretched like it’s about to explode, and for some reason there’s a ClipArt crown plonked on top like an eight-year-old making a school presentation.

Below that is what is probably the sun, but is underwater for some reason, making it look like a sea monster with giant tentacles.

What more is there to say? British Columbia is hands down the world’s ugliest flag. Now let’s look at some other competitors so you can see that while other countries are inept at flag-designing, none of them are legitimately painful to look at.

Belize

I don’t like flags with people. They’re jarring and confusing. Belize doesn’t help the confusion by adding a tree, a latin motto, a wreath around the edge, and a coat of arms sub-divided into three parts each with their own little emblem. And they seem to be standing on grass for some reason, which is the most unnecessary thing I’ve ever seen in my life. If you zoom in far enough, you can even see a grasshopper and the rest of the cast of A Bug’s Life.

I also want to point out the red stripes at the top and bottom, added in seemingly as an afterthought. Many countries use stripes, and some countries (looking at Ukraine and Indonesia for example) are content to paint a stripe and go home early. Not Belize though, oh no.

The Belize flag was designed by someone who thought the task wasn’t “please design an elegant flag that represents our country”, they thought the task was “fit as many things as you can into a rectangle”.

And after they’d come up with an overly complex design, someone also pointed out that a lot of countries have stripes so they wanted stripes too, and the designer begrudging smushed them into a tiny fraction at the top and bottom.

But fun facts about this flag, for people who love fun facts:

1. Belize is the only country in the world to have humans as a major design element on their flag.
2. Belize’s flag uses 12 different colors/shades, making it the most colorful flag in the world. But obviously in this case colorful doesn’t mean “prettiest”, because it’s an ugly mess.

Virginia

Virginia, didn’t you listen to anything I said? I said I didn’t like flags with people, and that trying to put too much into one design is a bad thing, yet here you are.

There’s not much to say here. Again, too much going on. And I don’t know about you, I don’t care what kinky stuff Virginians get up to, they don’t need to put it on their flag. Keep it to yourself.

Fun fact: “sic semper tyrannis” (if you squint to read it) translates to “thus always to tyrannosaurus” meaning that it’s inevitable that one day T-Rexes will rule the earth again. Virginians are weird.

Turkmenistan

Green background, sure, why not. Islamic crescent, cool. Five stars representing the five regions of the country, nice and elegant.

But what are you doing with that red-striped splodge on the left? It’s a mess. From a distance it looks like an animal has been run over, had its blood and guts smeared over the road, and then someone replicated that on the flag. And up close, it’s not much better.

I don’t want to come across as insensitive. I appreciate that the red stripe is in fact made up of five traditional carpet designs, each representing one of the five major tribes/houses of Turkmenistan. Very cool to include that on your flag but can’t you have represented them…better? You could have maybe made one emblem encompassing different parts of all five tribes/houses? Just a thought, if the Senior Minister for Flag Design of Turkmenistan happens to read this.

Morocco

Continuing with the red and green color scheme, we have Morocco.

Morocco is unique on this list in that the problem with their flag isn’t that they didn’t know when to stop. They have a red background and a green star in the middle and that’s it. Simple, elegant, memorable.

The problem Morocco has is that it was clearly made by an artist who missed the lesson about color theory. Red on green is a bold, bright choice – Turkmenistan’s flag might be ugly, but it’s easy to see that red stripe from a mile away. You just can’t tell what it is.

Morocco’s green star on a red background is very difficult to see. I’m sure you’re managing it fine reading this on your phone or a computer, but imagine that flag atop a flagpole on a windy day; you’ll be hard-pressed to spot the green star.

I’m also red-green color-blind so I’m also just personally affected by this. (As are about 8% of the male population, so I’m not alone here.)

The World’s Ugliest Flag

There you have it. The world’s ugliest country flags. Hopefully you learned something. Belize and Virginia have people on their flags, Turkmenistan has carpet, and Morocco are making an enemy out of colour blind people. And British Columbia, well, the less said about their flag the better. Just know that it’s by far the world’s ugliest flag.

If you can’t get enough of flag content and ugly things, click here for even more of the world’s ugliest flags!

Or if you want more flag-based content, learn about Dark Tourism, learn that the country of Burundi in the middle of Africa changed its capital, check out our Educational section.