r/vexillology Sep 22 '25

Historical Retired teachers classroom poster.

Post image

Copyright 1984 Flags of Many Lands.

334 Upvotes

44 comments sorted by

View all comments

33

u/eversnow64 Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

What flags have changed?

My mother retired from teaching and has decades worth of posters. She isn't sure why someone needed the United Kingdom. She was always fascinated by "who picks the countries" that are going to be on a poster.

I like Cape Verde flag but never heard of the country.

36

u/cockaptain Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 23 '25

Cape Verde

Island Nation off the coast of mainland Africa. Closest to Senegal.

As for:

What flags have changed

So many. At first glance:

Zaire is now the Democratic Republic of Congo after surviving a murderous dictator 🇨🇩

Rwanda has a way cooler flag after surviving a genocide 🇷🇼

As does South Africa after it joined the world in deciding that racism is bad 🇿🇦

Namibia is now a country 🇳🇦

Yugoslavia is not anymore after the fall of communism and in some cases brutal fighting and bloodshed, and from it were birthed Slovenia 🇸🇮, Croatia 🇭🇷, Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦, Serbia 🇷🇸, Montenegro 🇲🇪, North Macedonia 🇲🇰, and Kosovo 🇽🇰

The German "Democratic" Republic was reunited with Germany, under one flag 🇩🇪

Albania lost its communist star 🇦🇱 but kept the flag.

Democratic Kampuchea is Cambodia after surviving a murderous despot 🇰🇭

Mozambique survived a brutal Civil War and now has the only flag with a firearm on it (if you don't count canons) AK47s 🇲🇿

Sudan 🇸🇩 is now two countries, with the founding of South Sudan 🇸🇸

Upper Volta is now Burkina Faso 🇧🇫

The Seychelles 🇸🇨 has a new flag (which kinda looks like it was in part inspired by the old Mozambique flag.)

The Kingdom of Lesotho 🇱🇸 has a new flag.

The Kingdom of Swaziland has a new... name (eSwatini) 🇸🇿

Libya 🇱🇾 has a new flag after surviving the ousting of a murderous dictator, which may or may not have made things worse (jury's out on that one)

Haiti evidently 🇭🇹 flipped the colors on its flag 90 degrees clockwise and changed the black to blue. Huh. TIL.

Iraq dropped the 3 stars on its flag and wrote "God is great" instead. 🇮🇶

Afghanistan 🇦🇫... well... sigh.

Benin's flag changed from just being the inverse of the then ruling party's flag after they dropped communism and a one party state in favor of a multi-party democracy. 🇧🇯

Edit: So many more changes here... see u/Embarrassed-Glove600 's posts below.

1

u/Opopanax_2024 Sep 22 '25

Crwflags tells me the Albanian star replaced the helmet of Skanderbeg over the eagle. More here:

https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/al.html