Flags With a Cross (41)

Where these 41 flags are in the world

Counting by continent is the quickest way to see whether a design tradition is regional or global. Europe accounts for the largest share of this collection with 16 of the 41.

Four kinds of cross

The Nordic cross sits off-centre, pushed toward the hoist, and is shared by Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. The Greek or square cross is centred and has arms of equal length — Switzerland's white cross on red, and the cross in the canton of Greece's flag. The saltire is diagonal, corner to corner: Scotland's within the Union Jack, and Jamaica's gold saltire, which is the only national flag using neither red, white nor blue. And a cross can be a border rather than a shape, as on Georgia's flag, where one large cross is quartered by four smaller ones.

Why so many, and why mostly in Europe

The cross on these flags is Christian in origin, and in most cases medieval. The Danish Dannebrog is the oldest continuously used national flag in the world, in service since the fourteenth century, and the Nordic pattern spread from it as neighbouring states adopted the layout to signal kinship. Crosses reached the southern hemisphere the way most European emblems did — through empire — which is why the Union Jack's three crosses still appear in the cantons of flags in the Pacific and the Atlantic.

One consequence worth noting: a cross in the canton of a blue flag almost always means a former or current British connection, while a cross that fills the whole field almost always means northern Europe. That distinction alone splits this list roughly in half.