Run your eye down the flags of the Americas and a few habits show up again and again: skies, seas, stars, and coats of arms carried over from the moment of independence. What follows is a tour from the southern cone to the territories, with an eye on where those habits came from.
Why the flags matter at all
A flag is the shorthand a country uses for itself. It appears at celebrations and at funerals, at half mast and at full, and the fact that it works in both situations is the whole trick. Nothing else a state produces carries that range.
South America
Argentina's light blue and white are usually read as sky and cloud over the Andes.
Brazil's green and yellow field carries a globe of stars fixed to the night sky as it stood at the proclamation of independence, which makes the flag a dated document as much as a design.
Chile keeps a single star.
Colombia's tricolor is read for the country's natural wealth, its fight for independence, and its unity.
Central America
Guatemala puts two blue stripes either side of a white one, for sky and purity, with a resplendent quetzal at the center standing for freedom.
Honduras and Nicaragua share the same blue and white, a legacy of a shared history, with indigenous symbols worked into each.
The Caribbean
Cuba's blue stripes and star stand for independence and for the sea around the island.
Jamaica's green and gold are read as the wealth of the land and the endurance of its people.
The Dominican Republic works the crucifixion of Christ into its flag, which is about as direct a statement of faith as a national emblem makes.
North America
The Stars and Stripes is the flag most people in the world can draw from memory.
Canada's maple leaf does the opposite job with one shape and two colors.
Mexico's eagle and serpent come out of ancient lore rather than the independence era, which makes it one of the older stories carried on any modern flag.
Territories
Puerto Rico's flag holds colonial ties and local heritage in the same design.
American Samoa combines traditional motifs with the symbols of its modern government.
The Virgin Islands flags echo their parent countries while still reading as their own.
Where flag design is heading
Proposals for modernization mostly push in one direction: more room for the cultures and views a country actually contains, and less deference to the design conventions of the century that produced the original.
