Flags of South America Quiz

The Gran Colombia Colours

The single most useful pattern in South American flags is the yellow, blue, and red tricolour shared by Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. All three were once part of Gran Colombia, the short-lived republic founded by Simón Bolívar in the 1820s, and they kept the colours after it broke apart.

Colombia's version is the simplest — horizontal bands with a broad yellow top. Ecuador and Venezuela add coats of arms: Ecuador a condor over a mountain scene, Venezuela an arc of eight white stars. Learn "yellow-blue-red = former Gran Colombia" and you have three flags at once.

Blue-and-White and Star Flags

A second family covers the southern cone:

Argentina and Uruguay both use light-blue and white horizontal bands with a golden Sun of May — a legacy of their shared independence struggle. Argentina's sun sits in the centre on a white band; Uruguay has nine stripes and the sun in the upper-left canton.

Chile is often confused with the flag of Texas: a white star on a blue canton with red and white bands. The key difference is proportion — Chile's blue canton is square and covers only the top stripe.

Paraguay is unique as the only national flag with different emblems on its front and back sides.

The Distinctive Outliers

The remaining South American flags are easy wins because each is one of a kind:

Brazil — a green field with a yellow diamond and a blue celestial globe carrying the motto "Ordem e Progresso." The stars depict the sky over Rio de Janeiro on the night the republic was declared.

Guyana — the "Golden Arrowhead," a green field with red and gold triangles pointing from the hoist.

Suriname — red, white, and green bands with a single yellow star.

Bolivia and Peru — Bolivia is a red-yellow-green horizontal tricolour; Peru is red-white-red vertical bands, echoing its independence hero flags.