In Mexico lots of cities have gigantic flags in parks or outside government buildings. They’re big enough to envelop a house if they fall down.
Other than that people usually only fly flags from their cars during an international soccer game or a national holiday.
I don’t live there anymore, but in Denmark, the flag was everywhere. It’s a cheery decoration. People festoon their Christmas trees in flags (click on the tree image and you’ll see it), put paper flag toothpicks on their birthday cakes (scroll down) and stickers on the birthday cards, and in summer they have strings of flags all over town. This seems to be a habit all over Scandinavia.
Similar shrugs… we don’t compete as Great Britain in the Commonwealth Games, so it wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Then again, I suppose it doesn’t have to :).
Most Government buildings don’t have flags here - Post Offices and the like. Local council halls might do - I don’t spend much time around them!
Heh, that’s pretty neat.
I just noticed the guy across the street has taken down his flag, and in fact it doesn’t seem to have been flying for quite some time. Shows how observant I am. He wasn’t doing it right anyway.
I never noticed it until I spent a week at a hotel. It was out in the boondocks, but near a few auto parts factories and a cable landing station so I guess a lot of people went there on business (which I was). When I checked in they had Japanese, German and Taiwanese flags at the front desk. The next morning, an American flag had been added. A few days later, the German and Taiwanese ones were gone, and that’s when I asked what the meaning of the flags was. Since then, I’ve been in the ‘employee only’ areas of a number of hotels and found racks of hundreds of little flags. They’re ready for anyone!
In my experience, in Scandinavia, the flag is common because it’s treated as a cheery decoration rather than a national symbol. The picture in the link, for instance, shows a cluster of little wooden houses with Swedish flags flying at every one - I could tell right away that was most likely a bunch of summer houses, because that’s where Scandinavians tend to fly their flags. It doesn’t say Hooray, We’re Swedes!, or Norwegians! or Danes! for that matter, so much as it says Hooray, We’re On Vacation! At their own homes, people only fly their flags for national holidays or the king’s birthday if they’re so inclined - or for their own family’s birthdays and other celebrations, where small paper flags may also decorate the cake as dangermom mentioned. You might ask someone in Norwegian Hvem flagger du for?, “Who are you flying the flag for?” My younger son’s preschool puts out the flag for a child’s birthday and it’s a big deal for the birthday kid. Anybody who flew a flag in front of his own house every day, on the other hand, would be seen as a little bit eccentric at best.
The flag isn’t up at schools, either, or firehouses or police stations or… Basically, on normal days, you’ll see it in front of government buildings and that’s about it. People who have flag poles in their yards may fly pennants in the national colors for everyday, but not the flag itself.
The German flag is flown pretty restrictively:
When public buildings fly the national flag they must also fly the EU flag (unless there isn’t a second flagpole)
Private individuals usually don’t fly national flags (flying the national flag isn’t unheard of but you’d be strongly suspected of nationalism). You quite often see private flagpoles flying their state or municipial flag, though - these people don’t get suspected of homicidal tendencies. The state governments and municipial administrations are noticeably more free with displaying their respective flags compared with the federal government.
You do see national flags used by football (soccer) crowds as signs of their partisanship. For some reason the flag used here usually isn’t the national flag but the federal official agencies’ flag (the national flag defaced by the national arms)
Frankly, where I live, I see more Mexican flags being flown/displayed than US flags.
Oh, one weird thing about flags in South Carolina that I don’t know if they do with other states - there’s a lot of, say, decals on cars and things with the state flag rendered in other colors. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a simple (and elegant, and very lovely) flag and therefore takes well to it or what, but I’ve seen lots of permutations of this - garnet and black for USC versus white and orange for Clemson, for example.
What disappoints me most is that the US flag is hung in (Roman Catholic) churches, at least the ones I’ve been to. I don’t feel like it has any place there, along with patriotic sermons or praying for the US.
I also noticed this phenomenon when I was in the US and it struck me as a bit odd too.
Funny story, when I was younger my parents sent me to bible camp (a result of which I can’t stand any Christian services). We had to pledge allegiance the US flag, the Christian flag, and the bible. Almost everymorning the counselors would get into an argument over what order we should do them in.
I’m Canadian and live in the US. In the US, you see flags everywhere - although in my neighbourhood you’re likely to also see Confederate flags.
In Canada, the flag is flown at Federal government buildings and any offices thereof (RCMP, military) and schools. It didn’t use to be very common to see a flag flown in someone’s yard, but I guess that’s changed.
I think Canadians living abroad are also more likely to have flags than at home. I personally have a purse with the Canadian maple leaf on it, and my toddler has maple leaf shoes.
Is it just an Australian local myth, or do many of the flags flying from poles on private properties belong to very senior members of the defence forces, especially the navy?
Here in Central New Jersey, I mostly see the flag flying in front of government buildings and schools. My town flys about as many international flags (mainly Italian) as it does American flags. In the suburbs of Pittsburgh, around where I attend college, I have seen significantly more American flags flying in front of houses.
At the risk of hijacking, why is the American flag flown in a church?
I’ve heard that one too but I don’t think it can be true. While flags on private properties are unusual, there are too many of them to be flown only by naval officers. As I noted above, my father (certainly not a member of the armed services) flys the flag every day.
…and so far in the past 50 years only Abbie Hoffman has felt the wrath of that law. (damn shirt-made-of-a-flag wearing hippy)
A few years ago, a magazine here printed the Union Flag in different colours - I think it was because the West Indies cricket team were on tour here or something. So the blue was in fact green, and the white was yellow (the red was still red, but a slightly different red).
One of my friends put this version of the flag up in a relatively dark corner of the house. We noticed that if the lights were off, you could see the flag quite well, and your brain assumed it was blue, white and red. It looked blue, white and red. But if you switched the light on, it became obvious it was green, yellow and red. Quite a head f*ck. 
There’s a Union Flag flown in my village on a flagpole next to the war memorial. The Royal British Legion also fly one on top of their building. We also used to fly the flag when on camp in the Boy Scouts, especially if it was an international camp.
There is the Vatican/Holy See flag and the American flag at the front of church of most places I go.
This site says there is no law regarding it, and that the trend has been to move the American flag to the vestibule. It says that the use sprang up during wartime.