The Flags People Confuse Most: What 10,000 Flag Answers Show
October 26, 2026 ยท 4 min read
Flag games are the heart of DodoThinks. Between Guess the Flag, Guess the Country and the 1v1 flag duels, players have answered more than 10,000 flag questions since September 2026.
On average, flags are easier than maps. Guess the Flag scores 76% right, and Guess the Country (where you see a flag and pick the country) scores 84%. But some flags are missed again and again. Here is which, and why.
The flags people miss most
These are the lowest scores in Guess the Flag, counting only flags asked at least 12 times.
| Flag | Right |
|---|---|
| Papua New Guinea | 25% |
| American Samoa | 31% |
| Mauritania | 33% |
| Norfolk Island | 36% |
| Aruba | 42% |
| Jersey | 42% |
| Costa Rica | 43% |
| Puerto Rico | 46% |
| Honduras | 46% |
| Equatorial Guinea | 47% |
| Bermuda | 47% |
| Luxembourg | 50% |
At the other end, Brazil was named correctly 99% of the time in 76 tries, and Japan 96% in 50.
Three groups stand out.
Territories
American Samoa, Norfolk Island, Aruba, Jersey, Puerto Rico and Bermuda are not independent countries, so they rarely appear in school atlases or in sport. Most people have simply never seen these flags. If you play on the harder levels, these are the ones worth learning first.
Flags that changed
Mauritania changed its flag in 2017. The old flag was a green field with a yellow crescent and star. The new one adds a red stripe at the top and bottom. Many people know the old version, or know neither.
Lookalikes
Luxembourg looks almost exactly like the Netherlands: red, white and blue horizontal stripes. Luxembourg's blue is lighter and its flag is a little longer. Costa Rica has the same colours as Thailand in a similar stripe pattern, but in a different order: Costa Rica's wide middle stripe is red, Thailand's is blue. Honduras shares its blue-white-blue stripes with Nicaragua and El Salvador; Honduras is the one with five small blue stars.
The mix-ups
Here are the clearest pairs from all our flag games combined.
| Flags mixed up | Times |
|---|---|
| New Zealand and Australia | 14 |
| Indonesia and Poland | 4 |
| Belgium and Germany | 3 |
| Denmark and Sweden | 2 |
New Zealand and Australia
The most common flag mix-up of all, in both directions. Both flags are dark blue with the Union Jack in the corner and the Southern Cross on the right. The difference: Australia's stars are white and it has a big seven-pointed star under the Union Jack. New Zealand's four stars are red with a white border. We wrote a full guide to telling them apart.
Indonesia and Poland
Two stripes, red and white, but upside down from each other. Indonesia is red on top. Poland is white on top. (Monaco's flag is the same as Indonesia's, only a different shape.)
Belgium and Germany
Same three colours, black, yellow and red, but Germany's stripes are horizontal and Belgium's are vertical.
The flags that decide 1v1 duels
In the 1v1 flag game, you race another player (or the computer) through the same 10 flags. The flags that cost people the most duels:
| Flag | Right in duels |
|---|---|
| Myanmar | 39% |
| Mongolia | 43% |
| Latvia | 48% |
| Serbia | 50% |
| Bolivia | 50% |
| Lithuania | 50% |
| Yemen | 52% |
| Nicaragua | 52% |
| Costa Rica | 52% |
Myanmar (yellow, green and red stripes with a white star) and Mongolia (red-blue-red with a yellow symbol on the left) are flags many people have not seen. Latvia is easy to mix up with Austria: both are red-white-red, but Latvia's red is darker and its white stripe is thinner. Lithuania (yellow, green, red) and Bolivia (red, yellow, green) use the same colours in a different order.
How to learn the hard flags
- Learn lookalikes in pairs. NZ and Australia, Indonesia and Poland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, Romania and Chad. One rule per pair is enough.
- Play by region. Our quizzes for the flags of Europe, Africa and Oceania let you focus on one group.
- Go up a level. Guess the Flag has four difficulty levels. The hard flags in the table above only show up on the higher ones.
About this data
These are answers from Guess the Flag, Guess the Country and the 1v1 duels on DodoThinks between 18 September and 26 October 2026. In each game you pick from four options, so a mix-up can only happen when both flags were on screen. That is why the counts for pairs are small: they are the clearest patterns, not every confusion. Play Guess the Flag to see how you compare.