Talk:Gallery of sovereign-state flags/1

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Vergina Sun

FYROM,the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,as Republic of Macedonia is fabrik for folgery Greek history,Greek culture,Greek geography and Greek symbols Macedonians!See Greek Macedonian symbol "Vergina Sun",Philip II king of Macedonia and Alexander the Great king of Macedonia !!!---Vergina 00:42, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Here we go again.... --Jiang

Subdivisions of UK

Why do we have the flag for Wales, but not for England, Scotland, or Northern Ireland? Gentgeen 13:03, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

No idea, especially as Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man are in there. Sorted. Scurra 19:18, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Could someone tell me why subdivisions of the United Kingdom are so often (especially in lists, maps, and so forth) treated as if they were separate, independent countries, which of course they are not? Having their own football teams is not enough, I think. I suppose this is not the right place for the flags of England, Scotland and Wales, unless we decide to add flags of other coutnries' subdivisions as well. --Kpalion 16:51, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Macao and Hong Kong is another example. We might want to start a separate article showing the flags of subdivision. Gugganij 00:43, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Me, too. I also agree about the flags of subdivisions, perhaps also a Gallery of historical flags could be made. Nikola 16:14, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Because they are countries. They are countries within the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is a state which reports to and is recognized by the UN as independent. It's a terminology problem. Compare US nomenclature: Arizona and Tennessee are states belonging to a nation. Wales and Scotland are states within the UK nation in a sort of analogous way. Evertype 16:24, 2004 Aug 22 (UTC)

We don't have US state flags in this gallery either. Zocky 23:29, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Gallery vs. List

Is there a meaningful difference between Gallery of national flags and List of national flags?--Henrygb 03:26, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As far as I can see, only that Gallery of national flags also has links to the "flag of.." page for each country. If no-one objects then I'll add those to the List of national flags and redirect this page to it. --Scurra

This page is prettier, shorter, and people seem to like it more. Nikola 18:49, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There is something to be said for it being shorter, but I like being able to jump to initial letters of country quickly as in List of national flags. I guess that although they have the same content, there's no reason for not having both of them, as both styles have advantages. I'll leave them as is. Scurra 19:18, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It is possible to add initial letters to this table as Swedes did it (http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_%F6ver_flaggor). Nikola 16:11, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I like the better use of space that this page makes, but as a compromise, you could list the flags horizontally in the List of national flags. Dori | Talk 19:22, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

I expected the list of.. page to be sans the images. Why not make it a list of flag of.. articles, and let this gallery page be the list accompanied by images? It doesn't make sense as it is.✏ Sverdrup 14:27, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

National flags or flags of independet states?

I would like to add the Kurdish national flag here, which is undoubtedly a national flag accepted in all of Kurdistan. But as such it is not a flag of an independent or sovereign state. Given the discussion about Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland I would like to make sure it is ok. Erdal Ronahi 10:45, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It's a flag of a people, there are much more such flags (see Sorbs for example) but none of them are here. Do add it to the list of flags if you haven't already. Nikola 08:31, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Iraq flag

This flag lists the proposed Iraq flag instead of the official one. Either the Flag of Iraq article is outdated or this article is strange at this point. What is the current status of the flag of Iraq? --Romanm 21:26, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Well, I have been in Rome two weeks ago. The Iraqi embassy there used the old flag, and not the new proposed one. Gugganij 00:41, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thank you. I changed it back to the (still) official one. --Romanm 15:10, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Updating flags

I'd like to substitute the old large national flags with new ones from CIA Factbook 2004, mostly because a few of the new ones have better details and the rest should be in consistent (new) color scheme. I already did some uploading in this direction. Of course I'd pay attention if the flags were changed in the meantime (for example, improved colors of Image:Croatia flag large.png). Does anyone have some second thoughs on this? --Romanm 15:10, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK, so I slowly updated the flags with the new ones. I'm going to leave the old flags of the following countries for a while:

Image:Croatia_flag_large.png, different colors from CIA version,
Image:Denmark_flag_large.png, different ratio,
Image:Djibouti_flag_large.png, different ratio,
Image:Estonia_flag_large.png, different ratio,
Image:Iceland_flag_large.png, page says that CIA colors are wrong,
Image:India_flag_large.png, confused by edit history,
Image:Kazakhstan_flag_large.png, different ratio,
Image:Lithuania_flag_large.png, different ratio,
Image:Man_flag_large.png, different ratio,
Image:Mexico_flag_large.png, already changed, claims to be better quality,
Image:Micronesia_flag_large.png, different ratio,
Image:Moldova_flag_large.png, different ratio,
Image:Nepal_flag_large.png, didn't know how to handle non-rectangular transparency; Linux "convert -transparent white" gives me magenta background,
Image:Netherlands_flag_large.png, already changed and it got very special RGB colors, so I didn't dare,
Image:New_zealand_flag_large.png, already changed, claims to has fixed colors,
Image:Niger_flag_large.png, different ratio,
Image:Norway_flag_large.png, already changed,
Image:Philippines_flag_large.png, says that it's improved,
Image:Qatar_flag_large.png, different ratio,
Image:Rwanda_flag_large.png, different ratio,
Image:Switzerland_flag_large.png, different ratio,
Image:Thailand_flag_large.png, already changed, claims to have better colors,
Image:Turkey_flag_large.png, different ratio.

So if someone is willing to help syncronizing the color scheme with the remaining ones I'll be more than happy. Also I think that we should compiled list of errors in existing flags and notify our source (that would be CIA Factbook editors) of all the errors we noticed, so we'll get the best possible flags next year. --Romanm 21:16, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think most of the flags that were drawn from the CIA are incorrect in some manners. I will try to fix some of the flags myself, however, where should I put the new drawings at? Zscout370 17:25, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Fixed height

I fixed height of all flags to 80px. Since you can't specify height in wiki markup, I calculated the width according to the size ratio for each flag. Some flag images have wrong ratios which shows very nicely on this page (see Macedonia and Oman for obvious examples). They should be fixed and re-uploaded. Zocky 20:26, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I intended to do the similar (but not the same!) resizing. My plan was to resize flags so that they would occupy the same area. The rationale behind my reasoning was not to allow visual handicap for flags with different ratios. In the case of maps of unusual shapes (eg. Switzerland and Nepal) I'd use common sense and leave them small anyway. What do you think of this? --Romanm 13:54, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

AFAIK, when flags of different ratios are used together, they are all of the same height. I propose we stick to that convention, plus it makes the page look nicer - see the rows where all flags are already of the same height. Zocky 13:59, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I standardized and hand-optimized all flags on the French Wikipedia (see fr:Galerie des drapeaux des pays du monde). The standard height of big flags is 300px. I also produced and hand-optimized 75px (75 = 300 / 4) high flags for the gallery and country articles. The standard height allows fluid layout with floating boxes. The optimization reduces most 75px flags to less than 1 KB. Marc Mongenet 16:20, 2004 Oct 16 (UTC)

Is there some reason why height is the dimension that's being standardized? The gallery plugin provides very clean table layout automatically, and more importantly it makes it extremely easy to change the gallery without having to rejigger the table to fix gaps. Bryan 07:29, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No idea, but I think the English Wikipedia is moving away from the 300 pixel image standard for flags, since I have been "yelled" at before for converting images to the 300 pixel format. Pretty much the flags that are used in the Commons is well over 600 pixels, so I think we should just concentrate our efforts to get rid of the images from Wikipedia and start using the Commons images. Zscout370 20:36, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've no issue with where the images are stored or what the "full size" resolutions of them are, I was just wondering why Zocky reverted my switchover to the <gallery> markup for this image gallery. He left the edit summary rv to the version with uniform height, which is not possible with the gallery tags. see "fixed height" in talk and I was hoping there was more to it than just "it looks nicer that way". The gallery markup has some useful features that a hand-crafted table lacks and I don't see any significant decrease in the niceness of its appearance that way. I note that even with the current table markup not everything's neatly aligned on account of the differing caption lengths, some of which wrap to more than one line. Bryan 00:16, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Again, the problem is that uniform width makes flags with smaller ratios appear much larger than other flags. Compare the size of flags of Nicaragua and Niger on the version with the gallery tag.

I can't find any real references for this, apart from the American flag ettiquete which says that when multiple national flags are displayed they should be of approximately same size, but it doesn't really say what that means. Fixed height seems to be at least the de facto interational ettiquete - when the British and Swiss flags are displayed side by side, it's the British one that's twice the size of the Swiss one, not the other way around. Plus, that's how all atlases that I've seen (well, at least the once which don't ignore ratios) have their flag galleries this way, so I'm guessing they know what they're doing. Zocky 02:41, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What to put in this gallery, a short exposé

The whole problem with this thing is that it's hard to decide whether we want flags of states or countries and how to define any of them.

We could have undisputed sovereign independent countries. That would exclude subdivisions of UK, all dependencies and either China or Taiwan. It would also exclude Palestine and Western Sahara, as well as Greenland.
We could have states which hold sovereign power over some territory. That would include both China and Taiwan, but also Northern Cyprus.
We could have entities that lay an undisputed claim to sovereignty over a certain teritory. That would add Palestine (as it is only occupied by Israel) and Sealand (although Sealand is not recognized by any state, a UK court has ruled that Sealand is not under UK jurisdiction and no other country claims it), but exclude either China or Taiwan.
We could add dependencies (Gibraltar, Dutch Antilles, New Caledonia etc.) to any of the above.
We could also stick to recognized flags at sea. I think that includes dependenices and both China and Taiwan, but excludes Norther Ireland, but I am not really sure. It also raises the additional point of whether to use national flags or trading flags, which are actually used at sea.
Maybe we could have separate galleries for various types of flags and decide which of the above to choose for any of them.

I think we should at least have:

A gallery of national flags of countries that have a sovereign power over a territory, plus Palestine (because it's a real country, although not independent or sovereign yet) and without Sealand (because it isn't). I don't know what to do about Western Sahara and Northern Cyprus.
A gallery of trading flags recognized at sea
A gallery of navy flags
A gallery of national military flags
Maybe a gallery of national air force insignia, but that may be off topic here
A gallery of flags of international organizations and movements, like UN, EU, NATO, Red Cross, Olympic Commitee, peace movement, etc.
A gallery of US state and dependencies flags
A gallery of UK country flags and dependencies flags
Galleries of constituent parts and dependencies of other countries
A gallery of signal flags and semaphore.

Any other ideas? Zocky 23:54, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to choose from your above points, but for below, I don't think that there is need for separate galleries of UK/US subnational flags; all subnational flags could fit into a single gallery. Nikola 08:12, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

===>It seems obvious to me that we should not include administrative subdivisions (such as Wales), or else we would expand the list exponentially if we were being fair about including the subdivisions of all states. To include Wales, etc. but not Alabama, or Nova Scotia is POV. If we wanted to put dependencies, I suppose we could in a standardized fashion, but dependencies are not what I expect to see in a gallery of national flags. Since the word nation in common parlance is equivalent to the jargon state I propose that we only include:

The 191 UN member states
Holy See (Vatican)
Taiwan, as it is a de facto and for several states a de jure state
Western Sahara, as it is also a de facto state, administering actual territory east of the berm and is a de jure state for over 70 states, including being a full member of the African Union.

I would not recommend:

Palestine, since it has no de facto statehood. (Although, of course, I would support its inclusion upon a defined territory resulting from Israeli-Palestinian negotiations).
Chechnya, Somaliland, etc. and other "break-away republics" with no de jure statehood (including Northern Cyprus, whose only recognition comes from Turkey, the state who initiated its creation).

This would be what I would expect as a user clicking on a link named "Gallery of national flags." Of course, it would be entirely possible, and even desirable to create further articles on "Gallery of dependency flags" or "Gallery of (Administrative district) flags in (State)" (for example: "Gallery of province flags in China" or "Gallery of state flags in the United States of America") or even "Gallery of flags of disputed territories" although there is already the controversial Flags of non-sovereign nations, which has plenty of Talk of its own... Any objections to this? Justin (koavf) 04:23, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

I like this idea. There are some places, like Hong Kong, who's flag appears in both here and the non-nations area. However, I still think the flags of the other areas can be used in different categories or just only on their respective page, like Chechnya (which I need to get an image of the new flag for yall). Zscout370 12:19, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

White sided flags

Flags with a white edge have no clear definition of where they end. For instance see Bahrain or Bulgaria. I recommend either changing the background (to grey as no country uses it in their flag) or having a small border around the flags to sort the problem out. Is there anyone able to do that?

My fault on that one. I tend to not draw borders on flags, but from what I noticed, they might be needed. Plus, if we change the background on here, then we must change it for many pages. Zscout370 12:15, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

there's html/css code to draw borders around images - maybe that's suitable here? (clem 13:01, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC))

Atlering the Gallery

Hey yall, based on some of the items everyone has mentioned, I wish to atler the gallery so it can reflect just what you guys wanted. I know there will be some flags that will be removed from this list, however, I have seen most of them on the Non-national flag lists. I will go by the list from United_Nations_member_states and the few others agreed upon. If you have any questions or comments, just let me know, so I can carry it out. Zscout370 12:13, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

===>Response Sounds good to me. Justin (koavf) 16:51, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

I missed one, the Faroe Islands. If there are no objections, I can delete this from the Gallery. Zscout370 14:38, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've updated the page to use the gallery plugin. Should be a lot easier to modify in the future now, just add, remove, or swap around the images in the source list and the table's auto-generated. Bryan 01:12, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Western Saharan Flag

===>Issue: I appreciate Zscout370 uploading the pretty new .png for Western Sahara, but I'm confused by his note at the top. I've seen several pictures of flags of Western Sahara, and none of them appeared any different than any other flag I've ever seen. Please explain where you got this information... Justin (koavf) 16:51, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

I did not upload an image of the Western Sahara flag. The image is loctaed at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Western_Sahara.png. It was uploaded by SKopp in Nov of 2004. Zscout370 18:37, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

===>Ah. Thanks. I'll ask him. Justin (koavf) 18:56, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Your welcome. I know there are some several flags I have uploaded, like Russia and the Netherlands people had issues with. I welcome anyone's comments or suggestions on these issues. Zscout370 19:08, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Help me edit, please!

===>Issue: I've tried to edit this article since yesterday, but can't. Someone needs to delete Greenland, as it is not a state. Justin (koavf) 13:31, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

If I can get on the page, I can try to make the page. But, as always, it is being very uncooperative :(. Zscout370 13:47, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

- Resolved. Looks like the table has been fixed. Zscout370 13:50, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Final List

Well, thanks to Koavf and myself, we finially got the gallery to reflect the status of countries, not everything on the face of this Earth. Until there is a new country coming into existance, I do not wish for flags to be added here. Those will be quickly and swiftly reverted. I welcome all who wish to get items from the Wikipedia Commons and place them here, since that is what the Commons is for. Until then, good job Koavf. Expect to see a Barnstar on your page any day soon. Zscout370 00:00, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Missing?

Should the Commonwealth of Independent States Image:CIS-Flag.png be included as well? ←Humus sapiens←Talk 23:40, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, since the CIS flag is that of an international organization. The flag is included on the List of Flags. Zscout370 23:42, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Two Issues that Need to Be Resolved: Palestine and White Borders

===>Consensus: We need to arrive at some consensus regarding the inclusion or exclusion of Palestine on this list. Also, I think it would be wise to put in borders for flags that have white edges - see the flag of Monaco for instance. It appears that it's a single red stripe, rather than a horizontal bicolor. Justin (koavf) 18:13, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

The State of Palestine is a state recognized by the Arab League but currently under Israeli military occupation. What are the criteria for inclusion on this list? The flag of Taiwan is included here so recognition by the United Nations must not be the litmus test. --Islamist 00:03, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

===>Taiwan (and Western Sahara) vs. Palestine: The issue is discussed above, but I'm not sure that consensus was really reached. Taiwan has international recognition by several states and some international organizations - so it has a de jure statehood, like Palestine. On the other hand, Taiwan also actually administers territory, giving it de facto statehood. If Palestine had anything other than devolved authority from Israel, this might be a different situation. Personally, I'm not in favor of including Palestine on this basis, but I don't really have strong feelings on the matter, and I'm far from an expert on the situation. Justin (koavf) 02:19, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that both Taiwan and Palestine are not US Members. Taiwan is not even in it, while Palestine is a "Pernament Observer." My suggestion is that we should place the flags at the bottom in a category for "disputed territories" and stick the three above flags. Wait, that will basically add half of the flags of the non-soveriegn nations. Plus, this is the first time I seen this flag on this list, so it must have been added recently, maybe a POV edit. Zscout370 02:29, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Palestine (State of) is winnig recognition as being separate from Israel and the independent State of Palestine is being created by the USA, UN, EU, Russia, Egypt, Israel, and the PNA. User:62.84.86.30

The country of Palestine was created by UN in 1948, when Israel was created. Sovereign Palestinian government was never established but Israel does not claim Palestinian territory as its own - they are interested in changing the borders, but they haven't annexed all of Palestine. The fact that the Western Bank and Gaza strip are not parts of Israel but of another country is not disputed by any government, including Israeli. I think we should leave Palestine in. Zocky 14:45, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your right on this one. There are states, like Taiwan, who have been recognized by many nations. Also with Taiwan, there will be many nations that will not recognize it. However, we should only keep Palestine, Taiwan and Western Sahara in, since they have (or will) get land, actually run it, and enters into treaties. But I will object if flags like Chechnya, Turkish Cyprus and places of that sort from popping up on the list. However, I do ask is that we should have some type of consensus on here before adding a flag here. I hope this does not come into an edit war. Zscout370 02:42, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

- Comment: just one more thing, and this is towards Islamist: I do not appreciate the edit summary for this page as (stop denying reality) and the comments on your user page that we are "narrow minded". This is borderline POV, and I respectfully ask you to tone down the comments a notch and just to be as NPOV as possible. Zscout370 02:46, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I never listed you anywhere so I don't know what you speak of. Maybe you have guilty conscience. --Islamist 02:49, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, I hope the fog about Palestine will be cleared in the next few years, since I am tired of seeing blood spilt in that region on both sides. As for the second issues, the border that should be placed on the flags should be a light grey, just like in the Russian flag I drew. Zscout370 15:40, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What to include in this gallery, take 2

Can't we establish some litmus test on this and avoid stupid edit warring over the inclusion of individual flags? So far I've come up with the following 3 candidates:

Is it a flag of a government excercising sovereign power over some territory? That would include Taiwan and Northern Cyprus, amongst others, but exclude Palestine and Somalia.
Is it a flag of a "separate country", defined as a piece of land that most of the world's governments agree is not a part of some other country. That would include Palestine and Somalia (and Antarctica), but exclude Taiwan, Northern Cyprus and assorted break-away republics.
Is it an internationally recognized flag, i.e.
- used in major international organizations, or
- displayed in international relations, or
- recognized as a merchant flag
I think this would include Taiwan, Somalia and Palestine. I do not know about Northern Cyprus or Western Sahara.

My best guess is that the litmus test should be (#1 OR #2) AND #3. Any more ideas? Zocky 03:04, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's called a definition. National flag is defined as "an emblem flown as a symbol of nationality." And by the way, definition #1 does not exclude Palestine because the PA has jurisdiction over some territory, just not all of Palestine, yet. --Islamist 03:14, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Not really. The word "nation" itself has many meanings, some purely political, others purely ethnic. In the term "national flag" as used here, it's clearly the political nations we're talking about, i.e. the ones engaging in international relations as equals (at least theoretically). We probably should have a Gallery of flags of peoples for flags like the Kurdish one.

But, I'm arguing for Palestine to be included on this page as a political nation, although it doesn't fulfill criterion #1. Jurisdiction is not sovereign power - everybody on all sides of the Palestine/Israel debate will readily agree that Israel will intervene again if it decides to, regardless of what PA says. I think that criteria #2 and #3 should be enough. Zocky 03:25, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If threat of invasion by a hostile foreign army is a citerion for not recognizing a country's jurisdiction then why not exclude Afghanistan and Iraq as nations? Your logic is weak. --Islamist 03:35, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

- Having the third category will basically become the List of flags, which we have already. The Palestine flag is there already. If we have the second category, we will have problems with the ROC nationalists trying to add the flag back in. The first one, Somalia will be excluded because though there is a land called Somalia, the actual government is located in Nigeria. But if we take Islamist's definition of "national flag," we will be in trouble, and here is why. There are many groups defining themselves as a nation, but not forming their own country (eg. Basque, Chechens, Palestinians, Breton) and that will get us into major problems, since in the US, we have many "nations" of local indians or tribal areas, but they are not nations, like China, France, Russia, and others. We need to think of something up really hard, and really quick, and even might need to rename this category. Zscout370 03:28, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Regarding your points, what would you do with Scotland, Quebec, Kurdistan, Quebec, Basque Country (autonomous community), Navajo Nation? There's a reason these lists were restricted to independent countries, otherwise they would be the site of unending wars by various seperatists and nationalists trying to assert in Wikipedia the independence that they do not have and cannot get in real life. In any event, the same conversation is going on at List of national flags, and the suggestion there is to include nations which are full members of the United Nations. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:29, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Then that will get rid of Tawian, which (I think) should have two sections in this Gallery: a UN members list, and a non-UN members/former members, list. Flag companies do that all of the time, so we could try and give that a shot. Zscout370 03:33, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

jayjg Those are not independent countries, they are parts of other countries already on the list. Palestine is an ndependent country currently occupied by the Jewish nation. --Islamist 03:35, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How is it independent if it hasn't yet even declared independence, much less received it? Those other nations appear to have as more independence than "Palestine". And it certainly isn't being occupied by the "Jewish nation", since that group is spread all over the earth. You're probably confusing the Jewish nation with the Jewish State, Israel. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:43, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

===>A possible litmus test: Could we use the following criteria?

1.) The political entity in question has a defined territory.

2.) It administers said territory.

3.) It has a permanent population.

4.) It is recognized by other such entities as such an entity (that is, the recognition of statehood by other states).

I think these criteria are fair, reasonable, and leave little gray area. My objection to the UN test is that it would exclude Taiwan, in spite of the fact that it clearly fulfills all functions of a state (by any reasonable definition) and does in fact have recognition from dozens of other states (which is to say nothing of participation in other international forums, such as the WTO or Olympics) and an informal recognition with "Cultural and Economic Offices" in several more states. A similar situation applies to Western Sahara. Justin (koavf) 03:38, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

1) Agreed. I don't think we should include medieval knigt orders, be they sovereign or not.

2) Is problematic because of Somalia and such.

3) Agreed.

4) Recognized by how many states? Does it matter which ones?

Statehood is not a very good criterion. What about occupied proper countries where no state exists even de iure, like Iraq or Somalia a year ago? And agreed, UN membership is useless for this purpose. I don't think anybody would be seriously arguing for removal of Switzerland if we were having this discussion ten years ago. Zocky 04:41, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

===>Two things for User:Islamist

1.) Do you deny that Palestine has only devolved authority, makign it similar to Scotland? If you agree that it is devolved, it should not appear on this list, like Scotland. If you deny that it is devolved, you have to account for why you think that is the case.

Palestine's independence is not at the mercy of Israel. Palestine is independent, under occupation, like France under the Nazis in WWII. nazi occupation did not nullify France's status as a nation.--Islamist 03:54, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

France was an indepedent country for hundreds of years before Germany captured part of it, and the rest of France was not captured; your analogy fails. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:58, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You need to read some history. The Nazis captured 100% of France. --Islamist 04:16, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

2.) It is possible to accept the following two statements as fact (Ariel Sharon himself has admitted both): a.) Palestine is not a state, and b.) Palestine is occupied. Just because Israel is occupying the territory, that doesn't make it a state. It could be the territory of another state, terra nullias, a dependency of another state, or several other options. Justin (koavf) 03:47, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Palestine is a state under occupation by Israel. Most of the wld recognizes this except for Israel and Israel's lackeys. Of course Sharon would not recognize the state. he has been fighting to kill the Palestinian people and their state all his life. --Islamist 03:54, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, a majority of the world's countries, containing a majority of the world's population, do not recognize this. Are they all "Israel's lackeys"? Jayjg ^(talk) 03:58, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is exactly the kind of debate we shouldn't be having on this page. Just to clarify the facts:

Palestine is not a part of Israel, like Scotland is a part of UK. Both Israel and PA agree.
Palestine is not a state. It is a country but it's not yet a state. Both Israel and PA agree. Zocky 04:03, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I, for one, am sick of new editors who show up on Wikipedia and feel they must turn every Wikipedia article into a proxy battleground for re-enacting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:09, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I, for one, am sick of coming to Wikipedia and seeing Islamophobic and anti-Arab bias spewed on many pages dealing with my heritage. I am especially sick of certain editors who seem particularly dedicated to promoting a pro-Israeli agenda in Wikipedia. --Islamist 04:14, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That's why we need a principled solution on this. Zocky 04:12, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. --Islamist 04:14, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Another thing. A common problem in these debates is that words "nation", "ethnicity", "people", "country", "state", "government", "executive", etc. have fuzzy and overlapping meanings. For non-native speakers like myself, an additional problem is that they are often translated to a similar set of words whose meanings overlap in a different way. I suggest everyone, including native speakers, looks up these words in a dictionary and tries to understand what other people are talking about. Zocky 04:23, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Take 3

I stick with (sovereign power OR separate country) AND internationally recognized flag.

Can somebody come up with another solution which will include real countries with internationally recognized flags like Somalia and Iraq and exclude assorted breakaway republics without resorting to special cases to include/exclude Palestine? Zocky 04:10, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Solution: Create a new Gallery, called UN Members Gallery of Flags: we have almost all nations, though we might have to remove a few flags, like Taiwan. Since Palestine is not a UN Member (only an observer), that will be removed. Crap, that might get rid of the Vatican State too. Grrr....I will come up with something in class. Zscout370 11:23, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you want to create a gallery of UN flags, then the Vatican *should* be excluded, because it's not part of the UN. Your problem is that like many other people here you want to create a set of criteria that *pretends* to be about something, when in reality it's about something else. And you can't make the two fit.

Don't drag in the UN. The solution is much simpler: the one I proposed at Talk:List of national flags. If you want countries that are "internationally recognized", recognition by undisputed states should be the only criterion -- and the only remainining question should be how many undisputed states should recognize a "state", before we include its flag here as "internationally recognized". One? Two? Ten?. Pick and choose. Both "one" and "two" are meaningful answers.

But either way "recognition" should be the only criterion involved if you want a gallery of "recognized" national flags. Simple, no? Aris Katsaris 04:42, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

===>Recognition: First off, I'm not entirely sure what you mean when you say that the Vatican isn't part of the UN. It is an observer state, just as Switzerland was before 2002. I also don't know why dragging in the UN would be irrelevant - as an intergovernmental organization, it does grant legitimacy to governments. In fact, the sovereignty of certain states was only clarified upon its admission to the UN (Andorra, for instance). In point of fact, the UN itself created the State of Israel. Furthermore, there are governments-in-exile, such as Tibet. Their government is the rightful government of that region, but is not recognized by any state. Justin (koavf) 16:27, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to have to disagree about the UN creating Israel. The UN took a non-binding G.A. vote in its favour; however, it did not actually do anything to help create the state, which, in fact, created itself. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:20, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You are weaving a circular argument. "As an intergovernmental organization, it grants legitimacy to governments"? What does "legitimacy" even mean in this context, other than "accepted by the UN"? So what you are saying boils down to "what's accepted by the UN, is accepted by the UN." Circular. But independent states existed long before the UN was formed, states usually consider their independence to have started long before they joined the UN, independent states will still exist if the UN is dissolved. It's the UN that's dependent on the governments that formed it, not vice versa. The declaration on the formation of Israel is a single exception among hundreds of examples to the contrary. And as for the Vatican what I obviously meant was that it wasn't a member-state. Aris Katsaris 17:49, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

The declaration of the U.N. on Israel isn't an exception; the U.N. didn't create the state, it merely held a non-binding vote suggesting that it would be a good idea if such a state were created. Israel created itself without U.N. help. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:20, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

With the UN category, we can list nations at top, then observers down at the bottom. Though no matter which way you slice it, the Taiwan flag will be gone. Even if we add a Former Members section, people will start an edit war over it, saying the PRC is just keeping the ROC's seat warm. We cannot used nation's state departments as bench marks, since it is POV (US might recognize a few places that another nation does, and vice versa). If we try to have a definition for a nation, I am sure there will be "cop-out" answers that will add many flags onto this list. But to be honest, this whole debate did not start until Islamist added the flag. And if Palestine is not a state, yet we have places like Taiwan who are "dominated" by a foreign power. Wait, Taiwan is "free," but under the constant threat of invasion. Palestine, on the other hand, has little areas to control, and the Israelis are starting to let loose the reins. But I still think Palestine is not a state yet. I just seriously do not think of what we can do here. Zscout370 17:54, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think we should return the discussion to the Talk:List of national flags, so it can all be in one place. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:20, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

===>Response to Aris: My argument isn't circular. I gave a concrete example - Andorra - where there was no recognition of statehood prior to membership in the UN, but you chose to ignore that and resort to a straw man. Justin (koavf) 18:52, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Reverted revert

Jayjg has now twice reverted Islamist's edits. Considering that he never contributed to this article before, his level of interest is to be applauded - but, since he's been blindly reverting without bothering to cooperate in the debate, I've decided to revert his revert on a point of principle. I will of course not revert again if anybody who is cooperating in our efforts to reach consensus here decides that the other version is better and reverts my edits. Zocky 03:39, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

While I was writing this, Jayjg got involved in the debate, so the above is moot. Zocky

I have been involved in the debate on List of national flags, and the issues there are identical to the issues here. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:43, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Nations with prominent independence movements

Perhaps that's the best way to address this? As Quebecois consider themselves as a nation, and their flag flies more often than the canadian flag in that territory, and the Chiapas, Palestine, Tibet, Ireland, etc... are all nations with prominent independance movements. I think it would be a good middle ground here, adding such a section at the bottom.-- Revolutionary Left | Che y Marijuana 23:52, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

Che, I hate to break it to you but this page is now moved to Flags of UN Members. The term nation is very hard to define, so to make this page NPOV, we had to move it. Zscout370 (talk) 23:57, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Lesotho

I think the flag shown here for Lesotho is an old flag. Current encyclopedias and the UN show a different flag.

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