How to learn the Flags of Europe

Flags of Europe on the map of Europe

The Flag of Europe



How do you remember the flags of Europe?
I used the tinycards by duolingo. In a notebook I drew oblongs for the flags with horizontals or verticals and labelled the colours. I looked for links between the country name and the colours.

UK
The United Kingdom is easy, uniting three flags of England, Scotland and Wales, three crosses of different colours.


England
Separate them and what do you get? The red cross of England, you may recognize from the football team. Church of England, plus sign red cross.

Scotland


Scotland is blue. We would be blue if Scotland separated from England. Blue cross. Cross and blue, x for not wanting to stay in the UK, although they voted to do so.



Wales
Welsh dragon. It was George who slew the dragon, George's cross symbol of England, but Wales still has the dragon.

Austria



Belgium
Belgium has a black section, B for Belgium and B for black.


Author of Belgium flag superimposed on map of country, PavelD in Wikipedia. Creative Commons licence.


Croatia


Denmark
Denmark has the red and white. 


Estonia

Finland


Sweden
Sweden has e for yellow.

Romania
Romania i vertical (upright) lines, red, blue and yellow. R for Romania R for red.

Greece



Iceland

Luxembourg
Luxembourg has white in the middle, letter e in the middle of Luxembourg. Letter b for blue at the base or bottom of the flag. The letters e and r are also in the name Luxembourgh and appear in red at the top.

Bulgaria


Czech Republic
Czech has red, e in Czech and RE starting the word Republic.



Germany


Germany has black, red and yellow from top to base, letter er in Germany.
Black forest for the black at the top.

Belarus
BElaRus has a Big REd section at the top.

And a fancy pattern down the side. Bella, bella, belle of the ball, Belarus.

Croatia
Red white and blue from the top down, but in the middle of the white section is and Croatia's noughts and crosses.
See above.

France



Hungary


Iceland


Italy


Italy has the tricolor, which you often see on Italian restaurant menus, green, whit,e red, avocado, white cheese and tomato.


Netherlands


Poland


Not to be confused with Singapore, which added the Crescent and five five point stars.



Nor with Indonesia


Portugal



Spain




Ukraine



Lastly some more unusual ones:
Albania


Andorra


Armenia


Bosnia (and Herzegovina)


Cyprus

Easy peasy. If only all countries did this.

Latvia







Lichtenstein



Lithuania



Luxembourg


Monaco


Vatican City


As you might not be able to see the white flag against a white background, I include a photo of a table flag.



Their flag shows the keys to the city.

https://tinycards.duolingo.com/decks/9bruoMoN/flags-of-every-country-in-europe

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and teacher. Contact me for entertaining and informative workshops for colleges and schools.

Slovakia and Slovenia - erm - which is which?

Slovakia
Slovenia
Serbia
All three places start with the letter S and ends with the letters IA. The first two also start with the same four letters SLOV.

Slovakia has the middle letters AK.
Slovenia has the middle letters EN.
Servia has the middle letters ERB.

If you are confused, don't worry. The Slovaks themselves, on their website, admit that people often get confused by the first two on the list, Slovakia and Slovenia.

To simplify matters, Czechoslovakia divided in the 1990s, and the Eastern half became Slovakia, whose people, the Slovaks, speak a language similar to the Czech language and to Polish.

SLOVAKIA AND BRATISLAVA

Slovakia. Bratislava. White castle with corner towers.

The capital of Slovakia is Bratislava, which contains the letters av. Notice the a in the middle of both words, the country and the capital.

The western half of the country of Czechoslovakia is the one with the drinking glasses. The eastern half has wine and water. What kind of water? Waterfalls and spas.

Bratislava is dominated by the big square white castle with towers.

Useful websites:

Slovenia, however, was part of another dividing country, Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia is one sixth part of the old Yugoslavia, So Slovenia is smaller than Slovakia. 

Slovenia may be small but it's got a big dragon, the dragon bridge, and three more adjacent bridges, called the triple bridge. The one in the picture looks a bit angular like the top of an old English threepenny piece. 

Little Slovenia also has a little church on the little hill on the little island in a little lake, shown in the backdrop behind me in the picture.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.