Too similar flags has long been a hazard of vexillology. Or even identical flags, as Indonesia and Monaco currently have (red over white horizontal bicolor). Poland’s flag is the reverse (white over red bicolor).
At the 1936 Olympics, Liechtenstein discovered their flag was identical to Haiti’s (blue over red horizontal bicolor), so they added a crown in the upper left.
The same issue came up in the early days of heraldry, with everyone unilaterally adopting whatever coat of arms they wanted. The solution was to give heralds, as organized in the College of Arms, the authority to approve them.
Technically, a “canton” covers about 1/9 of the field (1/3 of the height, 1/3 of the width [give or take]). The blue portion of the US flag should be technically be called a “quarter” (1/2 of the height, 1/2 of the width [give or take]).
And Cote d’Ivoire is the Irish flag, just mirrored left to right (or inverted).
Personally, I consider that the absolute unforgivable sin for a flag. The whole point of a flag is to uniquely identify a single entity. Any country that adopted a flag some other country was already using should be forced to change it.
When I was a kid I wondered just how many countries in WW1 would be confused back when the country identification marks on planes instead of a roundel was just the national flag.
I watched that talk and I also recommend it. During it, I wondered what Portland OR’s flag was, so I googled it and was pleasantly surprised. In fact, he showed it as a good example in the later part of the talk. I don’t get down to Portland very often, but I can’t remember having seen it around. Too bad.
Where I actually live is in Hillsboro and apparently we don’t have a flag. But we do have a seal which is simple enough to make a good flag. I see it around frequently, mostly on city vehicles and street signs. Someone took the seal, which is the part in the circle, and suggested it as the city flag on reddit:
The Portland flag wouldn’t be very good as a national flag, but standards need to be a bit lower for city flags, because there are so many of them and you need to absolutely respect the uniqueness rule. So I’d say Portland is pretty good, as city flags go.
As LSLGuy mentioned, I for one find it easy to see swastikas in almost any pinwheel-type or offset-cross design with four symmetrical arms, including the Portland flag. But the vast majority of them, including the Portland flag and traditional Indian svastika figures with dots in between the arms, don’t look similar enough to the Nazi Hakenkreuz to suggest any Nazi-ish vibe to me.
Yes, much better than about 95% of the city flags out there. That video was apparently made before 2017, since he showed the Pocatello flag, which was voted worst city flag by vexillologists. But Pocatello got a new flag in 2017, which is much better. However, it would be improved by white fimbriations between the red and blue parts:
Back to the Utah flag. I just learned that the flag was wrong for about 90 years. Apparently a flag maker made a mistake in 1922 related to the placement of one of the dates on the flag. All subsequent flags followed the mistaken version. It wasn’t until 2011 that they fixed it.
I live in Hillsboro also. That crazy H is everywhere, even planted in daffodils out on Hwy 26. I guess we’re getting our money’s worth. I’m sure we spent a fortune in consultants
to come up with it.