Flags! We see them in every city, every region and every country. Nowadays flags represent everything in our world – a group of people, a sport team, something you want to share… -

Where are they from? Why did they choose their colours? What’s the meaning of them?

A lot of questions without an exact answer.

We did this project to try to answer these questions. Were we successful?

The project is related to European flags, we chose Europe because it’s our continent, and Europe is a continent with history, from The Roman Empire in the past, to the Global Crisis today.

It looked interesting to us to expose information like: All the times a colour repeats itself, which are the colours that are more repeated and why.

In Europe there is a total of 48 flags in which we can see different colours; from red, blue and white, that are the most usual ones to yellow and green, and black and orange in less proportion.

In some flags, different symbols like stars and shields appear. The shields were eliminated because they made the areas more complicated .

First we looked for the European flags, later we distributed them and finally we began with the mathematical part, the most laborious and difficult task. These difficulties were due to the designs of some flags , like the stars of the Bosnian Herzegovina's flag, the small crosses in Georgia's flag and some stripes of the United Kingdom's flag. We were also lucky to find flags with more simple designs like Ukraine´s and Monaco´s.

We found the percentage of every colour in a flag. A simple example would be the City of the Vatican's flag with 50% of yellow and 50% of white. When individually, we had the total of percentages of every colour, we added the total of these numbers. Later we obtained the total percentage of red, blue, white... of 48 flags. Finally we will show the exact information:

Red: 74.33%Black:25.67%

Red:66.66%White:33.33%

Blue:33.33%Yellow:33.33%Red:33.33%

Black:33.33%Yellow:33.33%Red:33.33%

Red:65.21%Green:34.79%

Blue:73.48%White:2.42%Yellow:24.10%

White:33.33%Green:33.33%Red:33.33%

Red:33.33%White:33.33%Blue:33.33%

Albania

Austria

Andorra

Belgium

Belarus

Bosnia and Hezergovina

Bulgaria

Croatia

Azerbaijan Blue: 33.33%Red:30.71%White: 2.63%Green: 33.33%

Red:33.33%Blue: 33.33%Yellow:33.33%

Armenia

Blue:25%White:37.50%Red:37.50%

Czech Republic

White: 88.10%Orange: 8.33%Green: 3.57%

Cyprus

Red:62.75%White:37.25%

Red:33.33%White:33.33%Green:33.33%

Blue:55.98%White:44.02%

White:59%Blue:41%

Blue:33.33%White:33.33%Red:33.33%

Green:33.33%White:33.33%Red:33.33%

Denmark

Greece

Finland

France Italy

Hungary

Black:33.33%Red:33.33%Yellow:33.33%

Red: 31.65%White: 66.84%

Georgia

Green:33.33%White:33.33%Orange:33.33%

Blue:66.03%Red:17.62%White:16.35%

Ireland

Iceland

Blue:33.33%Black:33.33%White:33.33%

Estonia

Red:81.63%White:18.28%

Latvia

Germany

Yellow:33.33%Green:33.33%Red:33.33%

Blue:50%Red:50%

White:50%Red:50%

Red:90.28%Yellow:9.72%

Red:50%White:50%

Red:66.03%White: 16.35%Blue: 17.62%

Lithuania

Liechtenstein

Malta

Montenegro

Monaco

Norway

LuxembourgRed:33.33%White:33.33%Blue:33.33%

Yellow:29.50%Red:70.50%

Macedonia

Blue: 33.33%Yellow:33.33%Red:33.33%

Moldova

Red:33.33%White:33.33%Blue:33.33%

Netherlands

Red:60%Green:40%

White:50%Blue:50%

Blue:33.33%Yellow:33.33%Red:33.33%

Blue:50.98%Yellow: 49.02%

Portugal

San Marino

Romania

Sweden

White:50%Red:50%

Poland

White:33.33%Blue:33.33%Red:33.33%

Russia

Red:50%Yellow:50%

Spain

Red: 33.33%Blue:33.33%White:33.33%

Serbia

White:33.33%Blue:33.33%Red:33.33%

Slovakia

White:33.33%Blue:33.33%Red:33.33%

Slovenia

Vatican cityYellow:50%White:50%

Blue:25.60%Red:51.10%White:23.30%

United Kingdom

Blue: 50%Yellow: 50%

Ukraine

Red: 68.31%White: 31.69%

Switzeland

•Blue: It repeats itself but with fewer frequency than the previous ones.-Water : Slovenia, Estonia, Finland- Sky: Armenia, Romania and Ukraine- Brotherhood: France.- Neutrality: Bosnia-Hezergovina- Liberty: Greece, Norway and San Marino

•Red: it is the colour that more repeats itself.

It has diverse meanings: -Blood: like in the flags of Albania, Armenia, Austria, Spain, Belgium,

Romania.-Politics: as Azerbaijan, Poland and

Portugal.- Liberty: France.

- Vigor: Hungary.-Patriotism: Lituania

•White: It is the second colour most repeated, and also it has several meanings:- Peace: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland and Poland- Snow and virtue: Estonia, Italy.- Equality: France.-Liberty: Greece and San Marino

•Green: It is present in few flags but with different meanings:-History: Azerbaijan- Hopes: Byelorussia- Peace: Cyprus- Fertility: Bulgaria- Nature: Italy and Lithuania

•Yellow: Not very present in the European flags-Fields: Lithuania-Sun: Macedonia-Justice: Romania

•Black: It doesn’t appear in many flags-It tells the history: Germany- Darkness: Estonia

•Orange: it has only two meanings:- geography: Cyprus - creativity: Armenia

The colours that appear in the flag of Andorra come from the mixture of the flags of France and Spain.

42,49%

30,27%

11,80%

8,33%

4,22%

3,60%

1,60%

To sum up we can conclude saying that this project has been very interesting for us because we have studied the European flags from different points of view : learning how colours are distributed in them and finding out that red is the colour more repeated, and also studying the meanings and symbols of the different flags.

•Alicia Parra Guerra•Coral Jiménez Fernández•Marc Márquez Martín

•Montaña Pardo Barroso•Paula Matías Roca•Raúl Telo Sánchez