Recognise African Flags by Country
A flag appears on the 3D globe page, you click the matching African country from a short list. Free, in-browser, no account needed.
Play nowAfrican flags carry a remarkable amount of history in their cloth. The Pan-African red, gold and green inherited from Ethiopia, the oldest continuously used flag on the continent, runs through Ghana, Cameroon, Senegal, Mali and Guinea. Mozambique still embroiders an AK-47 onto its flag, the only national banner in the world to do so. Lesotho centres a mokorotlo, the conical Basotho hat, while Eswatini puts a warrior's shield and spears on its stripes. South Africa wears the most graphically complex design of the continent, a Y-shape born from the 1994 transition. This quiz shows a flag, you pick the right country among a few candidates.
The 57 countries — Africa
Algeria
Algiers
Angola
Luanda
Benin
Porto-Novo
Botswana
Gaborone
Burkina Faso
Ouagadougou
Burundi
Gitega
Cameroon
Yaoundé
Cape Verde
Praia
Central African Republic
Bangui
Chad
N'Djamena
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COI
COI
Comoros
Moroni
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Kinshasa
Djibouti
Djibouti
Egypt
Cairo
Equatorial Guinea
Malabo
Eritrea
Asmara
Eswatini
Mbabane
Ethiopia
Addis Ababa
Gabon
Libreville
Ghana
Accra
Guinea
Conakry
Guinea-Bissau
Bissau
Ivory Coast
Yamoussoukro
Kenya
Nairobi
Lesotho
Maseru
Liberia
Monrovia
Libya
Tripoli
Madagascar
Antananarivo
Malawi
Lilongwe
Mali
Bamako
Mauritania
Nouakchott
Mauritius
Port Louis
Morocco
Rabat
Mozambique
Maputo
Namibia
Windhoek
Niger
Niamey
Nigeria
Abuja
Republic of the Congo
Brazzaville
Rwanda
Kigali
São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé
Senegal
Dakar
Seychelles
Victoria
Sierra Leone
Freetown
Somalia
Mogadishu
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Somaliland
Hargeisa
South Africa
Pretoria
South Sudan
Juba
Sudan
Khartoum
Tanzania
Dodoma
The Gambia
Banjul
Togo
Lomé
Tunisia
Tunis
Uganda
Kampala
Western Sahara
El Aaiún
Zambia
Lusaka
Zimbabwe
Harare
Tips to play better
Tell Chad and Romania apart
Both fly a vertical blue, yellow and red tricolour with the same proportions. Chad uses a deeper indigo blue, Romania a brighter cobalt. The shortlist will rarely place them side by side, so commit the shade to memory rather than guessing on the day.
Côte d'Ivoire is not Ireland
Ivory Coast reads orange, white, green from the hoist. Ireland reads green, white, orange. Same vertical bands, reversed. If you can lock the orange-first-on-the-left rule for Côte d'Ivoire, the trap disappears.
The green-yellow-red verticals
Senegal, Mali and Guinea all share three vertical stripes in green, yellow and red. Senegal adds a green star in the centre, Guinea reverses the order to red-yellow-green from the hoist, and Mali keeps the field plain. Spot the star or the leading colour first.
Spot the unique elements
Kenya's shield and crossed spears, Uganda's grey crowned crane, Mozambique's rifle, Zimbabwe's soapstone bird, Egypt's eagle of Saladin and Lesotho's mokorotlo are all one-of-a-kind. When you see one of these symbols, the answer is immediate.
Frequently asked questions
Which African flag is the oldest still in use?
Ethiopia's red, yellow and green tricolour traces back to 1897 in its banded form, making it the senior flag of the continent. Most African states adopted these three colours after independence as a tribute to Ethiopia, the only country that resisted European colonisation in the late nineteenth century.
Why does Mozambique have a rifle on its flag?
The AK-47 commemorates the armed independence struggle led by FRELIMO against Portuguese rule. The flag also carries a hoe for the peasantry, a book for education, and a star for internationalism. Parliament has debated removing the rifle several times but no replacement design has been adopted.
How many flags use the Pan-African colours?
Around fifteen African nations use red, gold and green in some combination, including Ghana, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo, Congo-Brazzaville, Zimbabwe and South Sudan. Layout and added symbols are what separate them, so look for stripes, stars and emblems rather than colours alone.
Is Western Sahara represented?
The quiz uses the 54 African Union member states as its reference list. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic flag, a Pan-Arab tricolour with a red star and crescent on a white band, is included as an optional regional flag for users who enable contested territories in the settings.
Ready to test your knowledge?
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