Actually, that’s a traditional heraldic position for an eagle or other bird of prey, known as “an eagle displayed.” No, not too anatomically likely, but then again neither is a lion rampant.
How in the hell is that even allowed? I thought there was some sort of international agreement about national flags not being identical.
Andorra’s arms look an awful lot like Link’s.
Azerbaijan’s is a ninja star - on fire. Also includes some lettuce and wheat, I don’t know what’s going on there.
Austria’s has the imperial eagle, symbol of, like, imperialness, but it wields a hammer and sickle, symbol of the proletariat. I’m confused. Plus there’s some broken chains for that extra touch of “Hunhhh?”
Czech Republic’s knows how to party.
Dominican Republic’s has an arrangement of several national flags on a shield with the flag pattern on it. Seriously guys, what the fuck?
Uh, for Andorra I’m seeing: mitre, stripes, stripes, two cows. For Link, I’m seeing heart, key, lion rampant reversed, heart. Is it just because they’re quartered? Because that’s not that uncommon.
This will only become a noticeable problem when we film them on the battlefields of the Great Chad-Romanian War 
Really? How often do you see lion meat on the menu? (And there are two lions on the coat of arms, for NSW and Tasmania)
Me, I prefer the simple (but traditional) designs, like Ireland and Japan.
Oh god, coats of arms? Don’t remind me of ours -
See it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SouthAfricancoatofarms.gif
- It’s not in heraldic colours - dark brown on light brown is some shitty contrast, people.
- It’s rock art, that’s not very heraldic, and only is culturally relevant to <1% of the population
- 95% of the population can’t pronounce the motto. We have 11 fucking official languages, and it’s in **none **of them.
Actually, Chad and Romania were on opposite sides in a major war within living memory, though fortunately there were no battles between the two countries directly. In World War II, Chad furnished one full division who fought under a Free French general, marching from Chad through Libya to fight against the Afrika Corps. (They were the forces which officially liberated Paris, by the way.) Romania’s dictateur du jour provided something like 15 divisions as Nazi allies in the invasion of the Ukraine. (Romania annexed something called Transnistria, which is taking irredentism just a tad too far IMO.)
Ah yes, the Baden-Baden “Stop Copying Me!” Accords.
Ninja death salad?
I didn’t know Andy Warhol did flags.
Since Chad was part of French Equitorial Africa at the time, they flew the French flag- although I presume the yellow stripe in the Romanian flag could easily be confused for white if you were looking at black-and-white film.
New Zealand does nothing to dispel those nasty ovine rumours by depicting a sheep in a Sling Room.
What about Norfolk Island, with their heart-stirring motto emblazoned across the bottom?
De jure, you’re entirely correct. But remember that the government of France was the Vichy semi-puppet of Germany, and the colonial administrators were on their own to figure out what to do: support Vichy, support the Free French, stay neutral, declare independence, or dither. Felix Eboue, Governor of Chad and a black creole from French Guinea, led Chad to throw in its lot with the Free French, the first geographic entity to back them. I have no idea what the Chadian emblems were as a French colony, or even if there were any. I raised the point as a light-hearted rejoinder to the “Great Chad-Romania War” – the irony being that they effectively chose to fight on opposite sides in WWII.
No, not just that. The shields are the same shape and the art is relatively simple. Your other examples have different shield shapes and more ornate art.
I realized that. I was just pointing out that if Chad and Romania had fought each other during World War II, it would probably be difficult to discern which side is which, seeing as most war footage of the time was in black and white. (Although the two nations’ flags may not have been confused after all- the Romanians used a symbol in the middle of their flag until 1989- first a fascist one, then a communist.)
As for flags that look similar, how about the three African nations of Guinea, Mali, and Rwanda? Rwanda’s flag looked exactly the same as Guinea’s, so they added a giant “R” to discern it from Guinea. Mali, a mirror image of the two, originally had a human figure in the middle of their flag, but removed it due to pressure from the country’s Muslim population. Rwanda recently changed its flag since the old design brought back bad memories of the Rwandan civil war. So now we have Guinea and Mali, the two mirror-images of Africa.
I should be more specific- if the two countries actually saw combat on the same battlefield.
I became highly, highly enamoured by the flag of the Caribbean Commonwealth protectorate, Turks & Caicos, during the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne this year. A friend and I spent several hours pondering the illustrations, and came up with the wrong answers, time and again. What do you think?
I think it’s a public service announcement: Wear a condom to help prevent the spread of crabs.
Cousin It, quit trying to hide behind the bird. We can all see you.
It’s a concise pitch to prospective tourists: Turks and Caicos. Come for the seafood. Stay for the pussy. Play some badminton while you’re here.