Talk:List of United Kingdom flags/Archive 1

Moving of county flags out of the county flags section
I've reverted User:Owain's move of an apparently random selection of county flags out of the "County Flags" section of the article, justified on the basis that "Banners of Council arms are not and can not be used as county flags". Firstly this principle is blatantly untrue as the Department for Communities and Local Government themselves use many of the them to represent their respective counties. Here for example DCLG describe how they have flown "The flag representing the historic county of Bedfordshire", here they illustrate "The flag representing the historic county of Herefordshire" and here the leader of Warwickshire County Council discusses "our county and its emblem" (nb. not "our council and its emblem"). Secondly many of the flags that remain in the County Flags section are themselves banners of arms (eg Cheshire, Kent, Shropshire). If we were to move these out too and implicitly decide that these don't count as "flags" we are excluding most of the traditional and established county symbols, and would only be left with invented flags made up as part of newspaper competitions etc. JimmyGuano (talk) 21:35, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It is not a "random selection of county flags" – the ones put into the local government section are not listed by the Flag Institute as county flags or extant proposals for county flags. The DCLG were only flying banners of arms in the absence of a recognised flag – as evidenced by the wording Hampshire County Council flag to fly at Department for Communities and Local Government. There is an important distinction to be made between banners of extant council arms and banners of historic symbols that were subsequently used as council arms – e.g. the Kent arms were used long before Kent County Council was formed. The banners of extant local authorities are not suitable to used as banners by the general public because they are legal property of the council and often don't cover the same area as the county-at-large, or incorporate elements from other arms, making them unrepresentative. I agree that we need more county flags, but we simply can't use fussy banners of extant arms, we should use our historic symbols in a bold recognisable way. Owain (talk) 12:49, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If there are technicalities or caveats over the use of a particular flag and these can be cited then it's clearly appropriate to note these in the content. For example, maybe the Hampshire example you have given should say "This flag is the banner of arms of Hampshire County Council, but is also used by bodies such as DCLG to represent the county itself" - representing te issue in a balanced NPOV fashion. Basing the entire structure of the page around this though, and particularly excluding everything that isn't approved by the Flag Institute as a county flag from the county flag section, even when its use as a county flag can easily be verified from reliable sources, is neither NPOV nor is it creating an effective, easily understood page. JimmyGuano (talk) 08:37, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that caveats should be listed, but the local authority flags you list should be listed in the local authority flags section. I don't see how separating out local authority and non-local authority flags is NPOV, it is clearly verifiable. Jumbling everything together into one big section is misleading and may give the impression that local authority flags are clearly able to be flown by individuals, which they are not. Owain (talk) 09:26, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Quite the opposite - the flags that anybody in the country is explicitly allowed to fly include "A flag of any island, county, district, borough, burgh, parish, city, town or village within the United Kingdom;" Other banners of arms require the consent of the owner of the arms, but not these.
 * That said, looking again at the official flag flying regulations linked there, they do clearly distinguish between "county" flags, which it lists with city and borough flags, and "historic county" flags, which it lists with other meaningful but unofficial areas like Wessex and the Black Country, so maybe the problem isn't having two lists but with how they're named? JimmyGuano (talk) 08:09, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, in the absence of any howls of pain I'm going to try and rationalise, subcategorise and explain the subnational lists to reflect the official status reflected in the regulations cited there. JimmyGuano (talk) 09:55, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * User:Howard Alexander has now made a bunch of changes (undiscussed and without even edit summaries) that seem determined to demonstrate that no county (ie current county, as distinct from historic county) can possibly have a flag, and that no flag can exist without the agreement of the Flag Institute (who themselves freely admit that they have no official or legal status). The Flag Institute are clearly a reliable source of information about flags, but they are not the only reliable source on the subject, neither are they definitive, let alone exclusively so. JimmyGuano (talk) 20:56, 26 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Hang on, I cleaned up a messy section after a massive change made without any consesnsus and now I get told I must seek a consensus? I know tht User:JimmyGuano meant well by hsi amendments, but they did not sit in a logical order nor reflect the longstanding pattern of the page. I retained all of the new material and tidied it into sections which repect the pattern previously established but which clarify them.  In particular I separated the established, registered flags from mere private proposals (which are worth space in themselves).  I did remove certain purely invented flags, such as "West Midlands" and "Greater Manchester" which have never been flown by the authorities whose flags they would have been (unless anyone can cite something to the contrary). Howard Alexander (talk) 21:04, 26 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The changes I made were in the light of the proposal made in the discussion above - I didn't suddenly pull them out of nowhere, nor did I try and unilaterally impose them - I didn;t go forward with what I initially intended and I waited a week for anyone to object to the compromise proposal. The changes were indeed a change to the structure of the page, which was what the discussion above was about. The official Flag Flying regulations that came into force this year which much brouhaha divide flags of local areas into two categories - "A flag of any island, county, district, borough, burgh, parish, city, town or village within the United Kingdom" and "The flag of the Black Country, East Anglia, Wessex, any Part of Lincolnshire, any Riding of Yorkshire or any historic county within the United Kingdom". This division is both official and logical: you can fly the flag of a current area, or if you identify more strongly with a historic one you can fly that instead. Personally I'm a bit sore that Mercia wasn't included in the list of legally-defended flags, but hey I don't make the law. JimmyGuano (talk) 21:32, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I do agree with the removal of invented personal hobby-horse flags though. As with everything on wikipedia, flags should only be included when their existence is recognised by a reliable source, which is why I spent so much time including citations. JimmyGuano (talk) 21:44, 26 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The page was getting a bit odd, so it is only a question of the order in which to put it. Registered flags include only historic counties, islands, towns and villages and regions. The planning legislation is another matter. The new regulations are permissive regulations, extending the liberalisation first enacted in 2007. It has split potential flags, as you saw, into administrative bodies and geographical areas (historic counties, towns and regions).


 * The new Regulations do not recognise any flag nor make any flag legal that was illegal under the law of arms: it only carves a piece out of the general restrictions in planning laws relating to advertising. Birmingham City Council has a lovely flag and they use it, but were I to raise it in my garden the City Council could write a sniffy letter and threaten a writ in the Court of Chivalry (albeit that the Court has not sat since the Manchester Corporation sued for such an abuse in 1954). I don't live in Birmingham, but my home town local council might take action too, saying that a flag I have not right to fly cannot be a city flag in terms of the Regulations - but there have been no cases decided on the point yet.


 * As the Regulations make a distinction between admin areas and historic / geographical areas, I did the same when reordering the material. It is also proper to distinguish between flags which are the personal property of a council and those which may be flown by anyone.


 * The Flag Institute's register distinguished between "County & Regional Flags" and "City & Town Flags". I included in town flags anything registered there amongst the "City & Town Flags".  Anything else must be a local authority flag.


 * As to Mercia, it is not registered, but the one seen on odd web pages is the St Alban flag. I'd not take that as definitive until the FI make a ruling.  If it were registered, it would be allowed as a saint's flag. Howard Alexander (talk) 22:04, 26 November 2012 (UTC)


 * There's no suggestion anywhere that the Flag Institute's register is definitive though, nor that it has any official or legal status. It clearly qualifies as a reliable source, but it's not the only one, and it doesn't necessarily over-ride other reliable sources. And it clearly can't be used as a guide to modern county flags, because it doesn't register them at all.


 * If we're going by the traditional law of chivalry then nobody is allowed to use arms granted to anybody else, with or without permission of the people to whom the arms were granted. But this is ignored by pretty much everybody, including the Flag Institute and the Government itself as shown by its own flag-flying programme, so is hardly a reason for excluding flags from the list. In the absence of a UK law defining what is and isn't an official flag surely the general wikipedia guidelines apply: a flag of X is a flag of X if its status as a flag of X is attested by reliable sources?


 * As for Mercia - heraldry didn't exist when Mercia existed as a Kingdom so the idea of a flag is inherently anachronistic. On the other hand, the use of the Cross of St Alban to represent the kingdom goes back to to the 13th century. So it is simultaneously both historically wrong and an established historic fact. The inclusion or otherwise of the flag on the register of a private group of 21st century flag enthusiasts changes neither of these things so can't possibly be "definitive" in either direction. JimmyGuano (talk) 22:47, 26 November 2012 (UTC)


 * At the time the DCLG were doing their flag thing I telephoned them out of interest. There was no learned committee sitting on this: just one hard-pressed junior official who found he had to find something to fly each week and did what he could, so the DCLG's flags have no authority behind them either!  The Flag Institute (of which I am not a member) is not just a bunch of enthusiasts; they are a respected, learned body which advises the British government and indeed other governments.  They are the only authoritative body to which we can refer. I agree on reliable sources; the FI is the only one.Howard Alexander (talk) 23:48, 26 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not disputing the Flag Institute's expertise or influence. They are an important source whose views should be reflected in this article. What I do dispute is that theirs is the only view that the article should reflect, or even necessarily always the strongest – that would be an example of undue weight so extreme as to border on parody. The government, for example, are authoritative by virtue of being in authority. Whether or not you were impressed with the relevant civil servant, they ultimately make the rules. The Flag Flying regulations give certain classes of flag a special legal status, explicitly to encourage people to fly them. The DCLG are in charge of local government in England so their opinions on whether banners of arms of local authorities can be used to represent their areas can hardly be dismissed – in fact it was quite explicitly to encourage such use that their flag-flying programme took place. Other reliable sources – published works on the subject, the verifiable opinions of reputable relevant organisations – need to be reflected according to usual wikipedia guidelines, there's not a separate set of guidelines for this one subject. And when it comes to the flags of counties (as distinct from historic counties) the whole issue is moot because for those the Flag Institute aren't a source at all. JimmyGuano (talk) 09:13, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

We're aiming at the same thing, but a little apart on structure. The Flag Institute's UK Flag Registry is a superb piece of work. Each flag there has been examined and adjudged on its merits and on whether it is genuine or just someone's idea. It is the only thing of its kind and the best we can come to a definitive list of "real" flags. Since the Register accepts as counties only historic counties, the flags there must be considered the flags of those historic counties, not local government areas sharing their names. No one will stop you flying the Lancashire flag in the Forest of Bowland (West Riding of Yorkshire) but the attribution has been to historic Lancashire (you do see the Lancashire flag in Barrow in Furness), so the logical category for all such flags is under "Historic counties"

Local authority flags based on the banner of the council's arms are genuine too as personal flags. The Cambridgeshire County Council banner, for example, does exist on cloth and is flown outside Shire Hall. There are worthy of inclusion, as council flags. Nottinghamshire Councty council has a flag which is very different from the county flag. The DCLG, as you noted, has used some council banners for the wider purpose, but then again they also used the St Frideswide Cross for Oxfordshire, and that is one a local organisation invented which has yet to receive the FI's approval. (I heard on BBC local radio that their are looking to hold a flag competition to settle a flag for Oxfordshire.) The logical place for a council flag is as a local authority flag as that is their distinct status.

The new Regulations do anticipate flags for all sorts of entities. It does not give status to any particular design for any particular area, though specifically mentioning the flags of the Black Country and East Anglia suggests that they accept the Flag Institute's registration of those: the Black Country Flag was registered only just before the Regulations were published.

It may be that new flags could arise for administrative areas, but the ones on the register are not those. The legal difficulty with local authority area flags (as opposed to local authority heraldic flags) is that a local authority has no statutory power to create local loyalty and allegiance, which is what a flag is all about. The exception is in Scotland, where the Lord Lyon may grant a flag as such to anyone. Two local authorities have received such a grant: Orkney and Shetland (and in both cases the local authority area and the county are of identical extent). In that case both the latter flags could be included in both "Historic counties" and "Local authority flags".

Howard Alexander (talk) 13:30, 27 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The inclusion in the article of flags that are in the Flag Institute's registry is certainly unproblematic - its status as a reliable source is not in dispute. The problem is the exclusion of flags or categories of flags purely on the basis that they aren't in the Flag Institute's registry, even where they can be cited to other reliable sources. WP:RELIABLE is quite clear: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered". I'm no longer clear if you're arguing against this?


 * For example the Flag Institute's recognition of the banner of arms of Westmorland County Council as a flag representing the historic county rather than just the former council, rightly qualifies it to be listed in the "Historic County" section of the article, despite the fact that the arms in theory are the exclusive personal heraldic property of the long-defunct county council. In exactly the same way Bartram's 2004 book "British Flags and Emblems" lists the banner of the arms of Birmingham City Council as the city flag of Birmingham, so it can verifiably be included in the "City Flags" section, its use is wider than just the city council. Similarly the DCLG's use of the banner of arms of Cumbria County Council as representing the county should merit its inclusion in the "County" section. The flag of the county of Cumbria is no more and no less a purely local authority flag than is the flag of the historic county of Westmorland, based on reliable sources.


 * I guess there's an issue when a flag in linked both to a county and a historic county, a good example being Hertfordshire, which is the banner of arms of the current County Council and is recognised by the County Council as the flag of its county, so clearly represents the modern county, but also has been used by the Flag Institute to represent the historic county. I personally wouldn't have a problem with it being included in both lists in that case, if this helped?


 * Do we agree over these bits at least?


 * JimmyGuano (talk) 21:34, 27 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I think we are getting there: if we make a distinction between historic counties and local government counties, and some may appear in both lists as you suggest, then that would work. The FI-registered ones are specifically associated with historic counties, though Hertfordshire and Shropshire have a sort of dual personality.  Some, like the Cambridgeshire and County Durham ones, are specific to a local government county, taking elements from places beyond the traditional county (like the white rose of York in the Durham CC flag).  Maybe one day the historic counties of those names will have flags of their own to be included on the historic counties list. Howard Alexander (talk) 22:17, 27 November 2012 (UTC)


 * That all sounds sensible. We probably ought to include the counties that were previously kingdoms (eg Sussex, Kent etc) in the historic regions and kingdoms sections too then, alongside Wessex, Mercia etc. (As long as nobody takes the current fashion for anachronistic flags to an extreme and tries to apply the 2009 Flag of the Isle of Wight to the Wihtwara...)


 * When it comes to structure the split based on the distinction in the flag flying regulations between "A flag of any island, county, district, borough, burgh, parish, city, town or village within the United Kingdom" - ie current areas - and "The flag of the Black Country, East Anglia, Wessex, any Part of Lincolnshire, any Riding of Yorkshire or any historic county within the United Kingdom" - ie historic areas - still seems sensible as well as being official. These classes don't have titles of thier own though and the current "Sub-national areas" title for the first section feels weak. Slightly adapting your phrase above, "Local government areas" might work better here, subdivided into "Counties", "Disticts and boroughs" and "Cities, towns and villages"? "Historic areas" subdivided into "Historic kingdoms" and "Historic counties" seems pretty good though? A bit more neutral than "Former areas"?


 * Additionally, the use of footnotes for "registered by the Flag Institute" or "designed by BBC competition" seems to be unhelpfully coy. Would this information be better and more openly communicated as a simple sentence in the "description" column for the relevant flags, in the same way that eg "a banner of the arms of the local authority" currently is? It has the same role in explaning and qualifying the flag's status and provenence, so should probably be presented in the same way? JimmyGuano (talk) 20:34, 28 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, "Sub-national areas" sounds unnatural, though "Local flags" sounds the sort of thing one might say. We would work to have geographical areas separated from local government areas, and within "Local goverment areas" it might be divided into types.  I wouldn't want to re-erect the confusion between two types of "county".


 * Historic county flags are a whole subject on their own and best given their own section, or a subsection within "Local flags". So much effort has been put into them by people across the nation and by the Flag Institute that they can't be hidden away amongst oddities like Mercia and Northumbria that might never see the light of day.


 * We can work the tags out. The "regd" and "BBC" tags are there to save space and repetition in small boxes.  They might be replaced by a Template, eg  BBC inserting " BBC competition " and a ref link to an explanation.  That's a passing thought.


 * Howard Alexander (talk) 15:07, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I'm not quite clear what you're proposing here. We need to distinguish between areas that are current and official and those that, while still retaining identities, are fundamentally historic. The flags of Cumbria and Westmorland may be equally valid, but the status of the areas they represent is different. Separating "geographic areas" from "local government areas" doesn't make sense as "local government areas" are geographic areas. What's wrong with "Local government areas" and "Historic areas"?


 * I don't understand your description of Mercia and Northumbria as "oddities" that "might never see the light of day" either - their existence as kingdoms is lasted centuries and their flags have been recorded since the middle ages. I don't see how they are somehow less important or valid than a flag design conjured up as part of a competition on a local radio station five years ago, quite the opposite in fact.


 * JimmyGuano (talk) 07:25, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

It would be a brave man to tell a Yorkshireman that Yorkshire is not current! "Historic" is not the same as "historical", the former meaning "with a long history behind it" not "dead and buried" or I'd worry whenever I see a sign welcoming me to a "historic market town". It is more a split between vernacular geography and administrative geography, which essentially is the split in the new Regulations.

The Black Country would be a prime example of vernacular geography, a very current area and one deriving its identity not from any administrative arrangement. East Anglia too is best known as a natural region, not for its having been a kingdom a thousand years ago, and one might say the same for the West Country, for which "Wessex" is something of a by-name, I would suggest. We can't sensibly distinguish between "vernacular regions that were once kingdoms" and "vernacular regions that aren't", although a note about it on "Wessex" and "Northumbria" would be informative.

I would have a section on "Local flags", divided into subsections:
 * "Historic counties" listing all the flags registered as such by the Flag Institute (but with a subsection at the end on proposed flags for which a reference can be found);
 * Islands, again listing those registered by the Flag Institute;
 * "Regions" (or "Historic regions");
 * "Administrative areas" (which could be divided into types, if there are any for districts etc.) to include flags for which we can find a reliable citation showing them in use;
 * Town and village flags.

Town and village flags might overwhelm us. They are not administrative area flags (and in the regualtions they are in the vernacular section) but the ever increasing number which the Flag Institute have registered, so we could have the main cities and the Cinque Ports and leavethe door open for a separate article on British town and village flags.

Howard Alexander (talk) 21:11, 1 December 2012 (UTC)


 * You seem to be taking two different and completely contradictory positions here. The first half of your comment seems to accept and indeed elucidate the difference between the two separate categories of local flags given special status by the Flag Flying regulations. That Mercia, Westmorland and the Black Country have a contemporary identity as part of vernacular informal geography as well as their historical (ie dead-and-buried) status as formal subdivisions seems reasonable. Indeed that is the only thing that can really make sense of the otherwise absurd and anachronistic fashion for inventing flags in 2011 for entities that officially ceased to exist in 1974.


 * If you'd taken your argument here to its logical conclusion and suggested that the class of flags that includes Wessex, Westmorland and the Black Country should be called "Historic and informal areas" or something like that we'd probably have reached our consensus, but having perfectly delineated the distinction between the two categories of local flags you seem to be suggesting a structure that ignores it. Aside from the fact that burying official current counties as a sub-sub-section beneath the label "Administrative areas" is simply incorrect (Cheshire and Merseyside, for example, remain as counties, but neither are administrative areas), pushing forward "Historic Counties" as if they were somehow the primary geographical subdivisions of the country flies in the face of the actual official geography of the nation, the Flag Flying regulations themselves, longstanding wikipedia consensus and simple common sense. I'd still argue strongly that the distinction in the Flag Flying regulations should be the main structural rationale for the article, but if you do want to combine them all into a single "Local Flags" section then official, formal geography needs to take precedence in the hierarchy over former and/or vernacular entities.


 * As far as what gets included is concerned we should just apply the general wikipedia principle of verifiability, consistently and across the board. Where "Proposal" just means a design that someone has suggested would make a good flag, they don't belong here, even if they have been reported as proposals in reliable sources. Where "Proposal" means that the Flag Institute hasn't registered it, but it is recognised as a flag by other independent reliable sources then by the same principle their status as flags is verifiable so they do belong in here. On that basis I guess the various proposals for flags for historic area of Berkshire should currently be "out", but the "St Frideswide" design for Oxfordshire - one the the ones flown by the DCLG and widely available from reputable flag manufacturers - should be "in".


 * JimmyGuano (talk) 19:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Verifiability to knock out mere paper proposals is fine, but consigning historic counties to the shadows would misrepresent the nature of local flags. The counties come with a thousand years of heritage, literature and identity to them, so it is no surprise that these are the focus of the blooming field of local flags. There is nothing in the Local Government Acts that abolishes the ancient counties, so I am will not consign them to "things past" nor consider them "unofficial", whatever that means.


 * You mention Wikipedia consensus, but this is just a set of internal policies for ensuring the consistent styling of articles; it has no relevance out in the real world. Out here, flags have arisen for historic counties and for towns and villages, and there is no policy that requires that we pretend they have not.


 * The main thrust of local flags has been historic counties, and all those flags registered as county flags are historic county flags. This is unsurprising; they are the areas belonging to the people who live in them, whose ancestors have been Yorkshiremen (or whatever) for centuries, while local government areas are the creature of civil servants in Whitehall.  You can understand then the keenness with which flags were adopted by Yorkshire, Huntingdonshire, Westmorland and Caernarfonshire.  These are the prime examples of local flags and so they would naturally take first place.


 * Howard Alexander (talk) 21:47, 2 December 2012 (UTC)


 * You can't seriously be suggesting that we structure the article around which categories of flags have had the most new examples created recently? It's no secret why there have been lots of new flags for historic counties over the last few years - the Association of British Counties have been actively promoting it as a way of campaigning for their point of view: "As part of our efforts to strengthen the identity and recognition of the nation’s counties, the county flag is a highly effective weapon in our arsenal" That's fine, they're not an encyclopedia, they're a campaigning organisation, and that's their job. But we are an encyclopedia and it is not our job to promote fringe theories, it is our job to reflect the balance of reliable sources. The flag flying regulations clearly categorise flags that have a special legal status, and my proposal is that this article reflect this.


 * The other idea you seem to be floating here is that we should structure the article to prioritise areas with "thousands of years of heritage". If we did that Mercia (established in the 6th century, though derided by you as an "oddity that may or may not see the light of day") would be close to the top of the list, and the Union Jack (the de facto flag of a relatively recent entity established in 1801) would be quite a long way down. I'd suggest that in fact this doesn't constitute an effective set of criteria for such decisions - the article should reflect the formal territorial hierarchy of the country as eg List of Spanish flags (1 National Flags, 2 Royal Standard, 3 Autonomies, 4 Provincial flags, 5 Islands, 5.1 Balearic Islands, 5.2 Canary Islands, 6 Historical flags) and List of German flags (1 National flags, 2 Presidential standard, 3 Military and state flags, 4 Flags of German states, 4.1 Civil flags, 4.2 State service flags, 5 Historical flags) do.


 * It is indeed Wikipedia's job to reflect rather than create reality, which is why I'm proposing to organise this article around the classes of flags outlined in the official flag-flying regulations, as an objective, verifiable structure that neither "consigns historic counties to the shadows" (on the contrary, it actively asserts their status as among the entities the flying of whose flags is legally protected), neither does it pretend that they have somehow replaced the contemporary subdivisions as the definitive geography of the nation. Other than the fact that you personally think that historic counties are really important, and appear personally hold a perfectly legitimate though minority and counter-consensus interpretation of their supposed continued existence as formal subdivisions, you haven't really explained why you object to this yet.


 * JimmyGuano (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Ouch! Alien abduction, British Israelism and Flat-Earthism are fringe theories; traditional counties are mainstream opinion and preference. As to obeying orders from the German way of doing things (Here tulips bloom as they are told said Brook), We should flee from such a thing.


 * That however is unimportant. Whatever the background, the provable county flags are specifically traditional county flags, hence my emphasis one them.


 * If the main question is the order in which they are displayed, well, we have an interactive index on the page. That just leaves the challenge of including the right ones in the right lists.  All the reliable sources have a yellow flag with a red rose as a flag for traditional Lancashire, which is borne out by its being flown frequently in Furness.  The county council might have their own (though whether it has ever flown, or flown beyond the council's own buildings, I cannot say). Nottinghamshire County Council and Devon County Council  use flags very different from those attributed to the historic counties.  In Kent, Essex, Hertfordshire and Northumberland the two designs are identical, though I do not know whether each council uses a flag in fact. As long as we get them them in the right slots, with overlap only where there is overlap, then there need not be too much head-scratching.Howard Alexander (talk) 14:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Different people in different places have different, often competing, loyalties, though. In most of Birmingham, which has a strong identity of its own and is criss-crossed seemingly at random by former county boundaries, loyalty to historic counties is really very low. I doubt if many people in Moseley are even aware that their district is historically in Worcestershire, let alone consider that it sets them apart from those strange Warwickshire types 500 yards away in Edgbaston. The gangs of Aston and Handsworth fight over many things, but Handsworth's Staffordshire heritage rarely seems to be one of them. I have a lot of relations in what you'd probably describe as Caernarfonshire. I'm not sure any of them think of themselves as belonging to that county - the bitter hatred between the towns of Caernarfon and Bangor, overlaid with an overwhelming identification with the Welsh Language, drowns out any identifiable county pride in my experience. In complete contrast Leeds positively drips with Yorkshireness, and I know that Lancashire feeling runs very high in Barrow-in-Furness. The popular groundswell that led to the re-establishment of Rutland as a county was both undeniable and deeply impressive. There is sometimes a generation split, too. Lots of older people in places like Bolton and Bury identify strongly with Lancashire, many younger people in the same places identify equally strongly with Greater Manchester.


 * "Traditional Counties" isn't a single belief you either support or oppose either. A resident of Sutton Coldfield who felt that the town's history as part of Warwickshire remained an important part of its identity would have my enthusiastic agreement. One who disliked some or all aspects of the West Midlands county and believed that Sutton would be better off returning to Warwickshire would not have my support, but I'd accept the argument as one that stood or fell on its merits, and one that does have significant support in some areas locally. I'm afraid that anyone who insisted in the face of all the evidence to the contrary that Sutton for good or ill wasn't part of a county called the West Midlands at all and had in fact remained in Warwickshire all along, would simply get smirked at by me for being slightly bonkers, and I'm not sure I'm the only one. So I'm both a supporter and an opponent of traditional counties at the same time. (nb my personal opinions are no more definitive than yours, I'm just using them to illustrate the point)


 * So are traditional counties "mainstream opinion and preference"? To some people, in some places, in some ways and to some degrees, yes; in others, no. Do either of these things have any bearing on what does or doesn't constitute the formal verifiable territorial organisation of the country? Except where popular opinion leads to changes "on the ground" (as with Rutland, or the abolition of Humberside), then quite clearly, no.


 * The only flags that are registered by the Flag Institute are historic county flags because the Flag Institute explicitly only registers flags to represent historic counties. To argue from that to the conclusion that no flags have been proven to exist for modern counties is quite spectacularly to combine a circular argument with a non-sequitur.


 * Anyway, if we've settled on a structure (even if grudgingly), as you say we need to make sure that each is correctly populated. I suspect you're right about Lancashire - my understanding is that the yellow background was an entirely new invention of the Flag Institute and specifically assigned to the historic county. I haven't seen any evidence of it being used by reliable sources to represent the modern county, so I reckon that should probably be removed from the list of current counties. Devon is a bit different, as it it has been used by the County Council to represent the county and I think the modern county boundaries are pretty much identical to the historic ones anyway, so I guess it can sit quite comfortably in both. In the case of Kent, Essex etc, I'm not sure proof of the County Council's own use of the flag is the decisive factor. We can be pretty sure that Westmorland County Council never flew the Flag of Westmorland as the two never existed at the same time, but its status as a flag is still well and widely attested. For counties such as modern Kent, as with historic Westmorland, the heraldic identification of the flag with the modern county, together with evidence of the existence of the flag in multiple independent sources ensuring that its existence isn't just a spontaneous Wikipedia extrapolation, really ought be sufficient.


 * Notts is a difficult one. My understanding is that the county's borders have been pretty stable from 1066 to the present day, so there should be no particular problem with the same flag appearing in both lists according to the compromise we reached above, but it's not really clear whether the Robin Hood flag has actively superseded the tree one, or just somehow sits alongside it. I'm really not sure how best to represent this.


 * Sorry - bit of an essay!


 * JimmyGuano (talk) 18:10, 3 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Right-o, then let's get on with it. I'll leave you do to what's need on the admin ones and I'll dig out my data on historic counties and see what citations I can find for flag proposals before including those.  (I used to live in Birmingham, albeit briefly.  It does indeed have its own, distinct identity and at some point a keen flag man will have to devise a city flag if the Council one is not to be used.)  However, that's not in my hands. Howard Alexander (talk) 20:04, 3 December 2012 (UTC)


 * OK that sounds fine. I might weigh in with historic ones too if that's OK - I'm not anti them, whatever you may think. I've started putting together an SVG of the rather lovely flag of Cumberland, which seems very widely attested despite not being registered with the Flag Institute, and doesn't seem to exist on Commons yet. Will probably be the weekend before it's finished though. JimmyGuano (talk) 19:15, 4 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Interestingly, Northumberland County Council seem quite clear that the Flag of Northumberland only refers to the modern county, quite explicitly distinguished from areas such as Newcastle historically within Northumberland. This is obviously moot, as one of the restrictions lifted in the new 2012 Flag Flying regulations was the one that restricted the flying of flags to the counties with which they are associated, so you can fly the Northumberland flag in Cornwall should you so desire, but it does put them at variance with the opinions of the Flag Institute. JimmyGuano (talk) 20:28, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Islands
Do we need a separate section for Islands? All of the islands listed exist as local government areas of some form or other, some are historic counties too, and some are already duplicated in those sections. Should we just fold these into the existing other sections?

JimmyGuano (talk) 20:05, 4 December 2012 (UTC)


 * An island is defined by the sea rather than administration, and gains its character from the sea not its council, although all the flags currently listed are of groups of islands with councils attached. The Isle of Portland should be there and has no district council (it is not quite an island by strict geography, but I'd not tell a Portlander that). Some of the minor Channel Islands have flags too, though we have not included them in the section. There were flags touted many years ago for the Isle of Lewis and Barra though what happened to those I do not know. I wouldn't anticipate seeing yet awhile flags raised for, say, Lundy or Lindisfarne or Rathlin or the Isle of Walney, but there is the space for them.  I'll have to add the Isle of Portland anyway. Howard Alexander (talk) 15:05, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Flags shared between current and historic counties
Flags that aren't used to refer to current counties clearly don't belong in the "Counties" section of the article, as with the removal of the new yellow Lancashire flag, whose use seems to be completely identified with the pre-1974 county boundaries. However all of the flags removed today seem either to represent counties whose current and historic boundaries are identical (eg Monmouthshire, Cornwall, Shetland) or flags that are used by reliable sources such as the County Council itself to refer to the modern county (eg Buckinghamshire), or flags for whom both apply (eg Wiltshire, Devon, Gloucestershire). I've therefore reverted the change. The principle is a fair one though, so I guess each case needs to be taken on its merits. JimmyGuano (talk) 22:02, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Pembrokeshire CC' area is very similar to the traditional county but the flag was devised before the council existed, as an assertion of the ancient county in spite of its lacking a council. Monnmouthshire CC's area is very different from that of the historic county and when the Council recognised the flag it said:

“Monmouthshire County Council is proud to bear the name of the historic county of Monmouthshire. We recognise the importance of the counties to identity and heritage and are pleased to see Monmouthshire celebrated: not just the local administrative area which bears its name but the wider historic county. We recognise that the proposed flag of Monmouthshire presented to us by the Monmouthshire Association is suitable to be accepted as a flag to symbolise the historic county of Monmouthshire and we would be pleased to see it registered as such on the UK Flags Register. We therefore support the Monmouthshire Association’s application for registration of the flag.”


 * The Cornish flag long predates Cornwall County Council and indeed any county council. Devon's flag was the initiative of local business groups. Wiltshire's was that of an individual, not the council. Howard Alexander (talk) 07:50, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Can't argue with Monmouthshire - I'll remove it from the "Counties" section. Re the rest - I don't see what councils have to do with anything, it's whether areas are counties (now), and whether the flags concerned are used to represent them (now) that is the issue, isn't it? JimmyGuano (talk) 20:05, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

twice as edifying
Template:UKFlagNote, which apparently is used only on this page, generates:

Why say everything twice? And if we must have footnotes, could the template at least use the named-footnote convention to reduce repetition?

Keeping up the repetitive motif, my remarks here are copied from Template talk:UKFlagNote. —Tamfang (talk) 22:06, 27 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes; it came out of worries about how legitimate were some of the "flags" shown, hence the need to show that any given flag is registered on the UK Flags Register, and/or enrolled by the Lord Lyon. It is helpful to note too when a flag was chosen by a competition, whether run by the BBC or otherwise.
 * The problem arises of repeated footnotes, when all of a type could feed one footnote along the lines of " < ref name=Beeb/ > ". A citation can still be given for a flag, and a location on the UK Flag Registry, whether as a footnote or in-line. Howard Alexander (talk) 15:07, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

College of Arms
The role of the College of arms with respect to flags is given on their website and is unambiguous: "The College is also the authority for matters relating to the flying of flags, and holds the only official registers of flags for the UK and much of the Commonwealth." . If you want to reflect a different interpretation you at least need to provide a source for this. JimmyGuano (talk) 23:53, 24 December 2013 (UTC)


 * They do, as the quote states, hold the only "Official" register: it has state flags on which they have advised, including flags devised for the Commonwealth, but it has none of the village flags, county flags and others of that ilk which have sprung up in recent years.  Call these "unofficial" if you like, but they are just as real.  Many thousands of black and white Cornish flags fly over Cornwall in season, all "unofficial" and nothing to do with the Collage of Arms. The site states also that the members of the College "advise" on flags, but then so does the Flag Institute.


 * You can't blame the College for touting for business; its members get no salary and are paid only when someone commissions work from them, such as advice. They have no authority though, except over actual heraldry (and I know their Court has sat only once since 1720, but that authority is theoretically legal authority, in its very narrow field). Still, try asking the College of Arms about local flags, apart from those of local authorities, and you will see how limited they are. Howard Alexander (talk) 00:31, 26 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not an organ of the state and it's not our job to tell people whether they should or should not follow the "official" line. It's therefore right that the list of flags in this article is inclusive and based on usage rather than officialness. However Wikipedia does need to communicate what the official line is in a verifiably-sourced manner. The sourced quote clearly indicates that the College of Arms is "authoritative" on matters relating to the flying of flags (which is more than just advising), and gives no indication that this is limited to heraldic flags. Graham Bartram's book "British Flags and Emblems" states that they designed the Union Flag, for example - that's not advising, that's deciding, with official sanction. I haven't found any obvious sources to contradict this. JimmyGuano (talk) 07:13, 26 December 2013 (UTC)


 * You are right - it is a matter of undue emphasis. In practice the College of Arms is toothless and uninvolved.  They have designed the Union Flag and the badges from which colonial flags are derived, but there their involvement ends.  They have no involvement in county flags, unless they choose to tell people in Hertfordshire and Northumberland to leave off using those designs!  That being the case, it seems odd to emphasise the role of the College of Arms when they have no role.


 * It is accurate to say that flags may be official flags and unofficial flags, and the College of Arms advises on the former, and indeed has designed many official flags. As to heraldic flags, they can rule on when and by whom they may be flown.  For unofficial flags, there is no authority, but the Flag Institute has provided an effectively authoritative resource.  The Flag Institute is a members' organization but is does advise the government.  Graham Bartram, whom you quote, is its Chief Vexilologist.


 * We need to find out, in a citable form, what the College means by authority as regards "the flying of flags". Howard Alexander (talk) 17:07, 27 December 2013 (UTC)


 * In the meantime we could put something into the lead just stating that a wide variety of flags are flown by tradition or custom regardless of technicalities (a point made by Bartram's book, so citable) and that this activity is encouraged rather than frowned on by officialdom? (something that could be sourced from any of the many musings of Eric Pickles on the subject, or even the preamble from the flag flying regulations already cited, which are explicitly framed to encourage rather than restrict the flying of flags). I agree that for an inclusive article the lead does seem to emphasise the restrictive at the moment. The Flag Institute are clearly an important source of informed opinion on this subject, but they are equally clearly not authoritative in the sense of having any official status or decision-making power - that seems to rest solely with the College of Arms, however selectively they choose to use it. JimmyGuano (talk) 11:39, 30 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree. Howard Alexander (talk) 19:47, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Overlap with List of English flags, etc.
This article has huge overlap with List of English flags and repeats much of it. Should we move all subnational English flags to List of English flags? MRSC (talk) 19:10, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That suggests we should delete List of English flags. That would be fine. Howard Alexander (talk) 13:46, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Summary style encourages the creation of daughter articles as appropriate rather than centralising. MRSC (talk) 16:46, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It could be divided then into daughter articles for British national & state flags; British imperial & colonial flags; British local, county and local authority flags etc (maybe choose better names). Dividing it into "All sorts of flags for 90% of the land" and then others identical for other areas makes no logical sense. Personally I would leave it as it is, and every editor up to now has been happy with it too.Howard Alexander (talk) 17:38, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with Howard. This article is a reasonable size. Besides, most England and UK articles overlap, since most of the UK is England. Rob (talk | contribs) 20:17, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The name "Union Jack" is correct in any context
I've removed the references to the idea that the British flag is only called a "Union Jack" when at sea; this is a myth.

http://www.flaginstitute.org/wp/british-flags/the-union-jack-or-the-union-flag/

2.102.80.232 (talk) 16:36, 6 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree. The Oxford English Dictionary confirms that Union Jack is correct everywhere, and is the usual name.
 * "Union Jack, n. [...] After 1801: the national flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland [...] Union Jack has now replaced Union flag as the usual term to describe the national flag of the United Kingdom."


 * I have adjusted the article accordingly. Verbcatcher (talk) 04:41, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Flag of colonial Hong Kong
Hong Kong is not longer an overseas British Territory I am tired to removed the flag from point 8. The flag of the colonial appears again in the historical section of overseas territories.


 * Thanks for pointing this error but for future reference please don't make WP:POINTy changes to the article if you find a mistake. Thank you. Wee Curry Monster talk 14:49, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

BBC article on county flags
May be of interest -- BBC News - Flying the county flag: The preservation of an identity 20 April 2014 ... -- AnonMoos (talk) 15:26, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Green ensign: "no record of its actual use"
That doesn't seem to be true. It's included on a lot of 18th century and 19th century flag charts, and if you scroll down on the "Ireland before the Partition of 1922" FOTW page you can see reports of the use of very similar flags on ships in 1785, 1846, 1888, 1908, etc. AnonMoos (talk) 15:26, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Mercia
The Flag of Mercia is a recent invention anachronistically applied to a long-departed Dark Age kingdom, but we should get it right. The Mercians in their time had no known flag as an authentic pattern; only the modern version can be authentic. The argument has been between one in light blue and one in dark blue.


 * Dark blue, supported by:
 * The Flag Institute
 * The flag on Tamworth Castle
 * Light blue, supported by:
 * The faded paint job on a sign on the way in to Tamworth.

The one "Flag of Mercia" predating the flag registration is that flown from Tamworth Castle, and that flag is dark blue, and it is a real flag, not a representation of one. In short, a picture of a light blue flag does not represent any real flag attributed to Mercia.

The Flag Institute agrees. The Institute has no legal authority, but it has effective authority. It applies expertise and academic rigour and has concluded that the dark blue flag is appropriate. Furthermore, flag makers follow its guidance, so when actual cloth flags are made, they will be in the pattern shown on the UK Flag Registry.

Hogweard (talk) 21:01, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Use by the Flag Institute is not any sort of evidence as it has no legal standing or authority at all. The flag recently claimed by them as that of Mercia is closer to purple and orange than blue and yellow, and in no way matches the two photos of the Tamworth Castle flag linked above. But if anyone still doubts that the town uses a lighter shade, matching the actual Saint Alban's Cross (which is, after all, exactly what it is), see the following:


 * https://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/6834183862/

And Tamworth Football Club.

Please get a consensus before changing the established version. TharkunColl (talk) 00:57, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * You have not shown a single example of a sky-blue flag. A flag is a piece of cloth - your examples are a paint-job on a sign and two wall-mounted shields, not flags.  The one flag there is flown as a Flag of Mercia is that flown on Tamworth Castle, which is dark blue. You cannot say that this is "not the right flag" because it is the actual flag. Hogweard (talk) 07:16, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The dark purple and orange version does NOT match the flag flown from Tamworth Castle. TharkunColl (talk) 08:32, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Purple and orange? That's not what I would have called them.  If you want to do a graphic with the shades actually used in the Tamworth flag, feel free: you may have to call whoever runs Tamworth Castle to ask what the are.  I suspect they are much the same as the FI version, as the latter was based on the former.


 * The 'Flag of Mercia' is now being manufactured commercially, so there are now other real flags to copy. I have not seen one on cloth but the graphic on World Flag Shop's website here shows a dark blue flag but with a lighter gold colour than on the FI version. Hogweard (talk) 15:21, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * At least that one is yellow, and not orange. The blue is still too dark though. And, as your example illustrates, a flag isn't necessarily only a cloth object. All the pictures I linked too show official representations of Tamworth's coat of arms, which incorporates the flag, and all of them match the lighter blue of the Cross of St Alban. TharkunColl (talk) 15:37, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Sigh. I didn't know a shade of blue would mean so much to you, and I only jumped into the edit war halfway through on a rare visit to WP.  Though all the real Mercian and St Albans flags flapping on poles throughout the Midlands and Hertfordshire be dark in hue, refuse to give them credence if you will for all the difference it makes to me or to anyone come to that.  Incidentally, I found that I had a photo of the flag flown in St Albans, which you will find in this picture. Hogweard (talk) 23:56, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the pic, it certainly highlights the fact that there is no difference between the Cross of St Alban as flown in Tamworth and that flown in St Albans. TharkunColl (talk) 00:14, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

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1rr restriction notice
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Alderney and Sark
Neither Alderney nor Sark 'belong' to Guernsey. Constitutionally they are equal, self-governing, parts of the Bailiwick; — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nigelroberts (talk • contribs) 08:31, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

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Defaced?
I wonder at the frequent use (174 times) of 'defaced' to mean 'with an additional charge'. 'Defaced' has implications of damage or denigration. Example: 'A blue ensign defaced with a horizontal yellow anchor'

The heraldic 'debruised' almost fits, except that its use is restricted to ordinaries.

I'd much prefer a simple 'bearing', as in 'A blue ensign bearing a horizontal yellow anchor', or nothing at all except in formal heraldic blazons: 'A blue ensign with a horizontal yellow anchor'. Gordon Findlay (talk) 21:51, 30 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I understand that defaced is the proper term to use refer Defacement (flag). MilborneOne (talk) 23:16, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Former Falkland Island Flags
Can we please have a more up to date svg versions of these former colonial flags of the Falkland Islands please (2A02:C7F:5621:2A00:4523:B00B:9EF:F101 (talk) 15:58, 21 December 2016 (UTC))
 * I have put this on here as I could see after over a year of asking I was getting no where, please can these flags be made more up to date. (151.231.185.63 (talk) 17:19, 1 March 2018 (UTC))

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Changing "on" to "-present" or "-"?
I've noticed that many flag-list pages use either "xxxx-present" (see. List of Canadian Flags) or just a simple "xxxx-" (see. Flags of Asia, Flags of Africa) for flags in current use. Is there any particular reason we use "on" here for flags in current use, or could we consider changing it to one of the other flag list forms?

Popcorned (talk) 21:10, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Eureka Flag
Why is the Eureka flag included on this page? It hardly seems relevant as a 'British' flag considering it is Australian in origin. I would recommend it be deleted from this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.223.56.56 (talk) 13:38, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

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