Forever in Peace May They Wave

I've always had a thing for flags. As I child, I would sometimes pull out the "F" volume of our encyclopedia set (The New Book of Knowledge, which was for some reason stored in my room) and look at a color spread of all the world's flags. I got extra excited when a school assignment required us to construct flags. Yes, I was a total geek.

So I was especially jazzed about finding this site today: a ranking of all the world's flags in terms of aesthetic value. Some of the comments are pretty funny, such as Libya's choice of a plain green rectangle ("Did you even try?"), Mauritius four-bar monstrosity ("'Hey, lots of countries have a tricolour, why don't we have a quadcolour?' Big mistake."), and Zimbabwe ("Features a hawk sitting on a toilet.").

The grading methodology is here. There are bonus points for simplicity and good colors, and flags lose points for bad colors, the use of maps, and resemblance to corporate logos. Especially damning is the penalty for "Makes me nauseous."

The United States gets a C+, which is about what I'd give it. I've never really taken to it, in part because of the proportion of the size and shape of the blue field to the whole rectangle, and because of all those stars.

The United Kingdom is one of my favorite flags, but it gets only a B on this list, having points docked for being "too busy." I don't think it's too busy at all. I like especially that it incorporates the flags of England, Scotland, and Ireland (it's the cross of St. George, imposed on the cross of St. Patrick, all imposed on the cross of St. Andrew). Of course, that means that Wales gets left out--tough luck to the Welsh for living in a principality rather than a kingdom.

Another one of my favorite flags was the Confederate battle flag, aka the Stars and Bars. Unfortunately, it's now forever tainted with racism and redneckery, but it's a fine looking flag.