BabelStone Fonts

BabelStone Flags

Description

BabelStone Flags v. 4.08 is a font that supports multicolour flag glyphs for Unicode character sequences representing various national, sub-national, supra-national, and miscellaneous flags. The font is under development, and does not yet support all national flags of the world. The current version of the font includes glyphs for 246 flags in total. The font uses the COLR/CPAL format for layered colour fonts, which is supported by all major browsers (including IE11, Edge, Firefox, and Chrome). The colour flags for national flags (represented as Regional Indicator Sequences) should display correctly on the latest versions of Edge, Firefox, and Chrome, as well as in Microsoft Word 2016 or later. The font also includes an SVG table for the colour glyphs, so may work on systems that support SVG fonts but do not support COLR/CPAL fonts (but I have not been able to test this).

This font supports the two mechanisms for representing country and region flags described in the proposed update to Unicode Technical Standard #51 (Unicode Emoji): Regional Indicator Sequences and Flag Emoji Tag Sequences. These sequences are defined in the Emoji 5.0 data.

Regional Indicator Sequences

These are sequences of two Regional Indicator letter symbols (1F1E6..1F1FF = A..Z) corresponding to ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 two-letter country codes (technically the Unicode Standard references Unicode region subtags defined in CLDR, which are derived from ISO 3166-1 codes). For example, the country code for USA ("US") is represented by the Unicode character sequence <1F1FA 1F1F8> (RIS-U, RIS-S). If a particular RI sequence is not supported, it should fallback to displaying as two individual Regional Indicator letter symbols (generally a boxed capital letter A through Z).

As the boundary between adjacent RI sequences is not indicated at the encoding level, it is possible to get unexpected diplay results for consecutive sequences of more than two RI symbols. For example, you may put a sequence of four RI symbols AQAZ (🇦🇶🇦🇿) on your web page, which you intend to render as the flags of Antarctica (AQ) and Azerbaijan (AZ), but if a visitor's browser does not support the flag of Antarctica the result for them may be the flag of Qatar (QA) sandwiched between orphaned RI symbols A and Z (🇦​🇶🇦​🇿). To avoid getting the wrong flags displayed it is safest to separate consecutive RI sequences with a space character or punctuation mark.

BabelStone Flags currently supports flags for 168 countries, territories or international entities with an ISO 3166-1 code, as well as the historic flags of Czechoslovakia (CS), East Germany (DD), the Soviet Union (SU), and Yugoslavia (YU).

Flag Emoji Tag Sequences

These are sequences of a waving black flag character (U+1F3F4 🏴) followed by four or five lowercase tag letters (E0061..E007A) and/or tag digits (E0030..E0039) terminated by a cancel tag (E007F). These sequences correspond to ISO 3166-2 codes representing subdivisions of countries listed in ISO 3166-1 (e.g. states, provinces, counties, autonomous regions), but with the hyphen omitted, so for example the ISO 3166-2 code GB-SCT for Scotland is represented by this sequence of seven Unicode characters: <1F3F4 E0067 E0062 E0073 E0063 E0074 E007F> (Waving Black Flag, Tag-g, Tag-b, Tag-s, Tag-c, Tag-t, Cancel Tag). (Technically the Unicode Standard references Unicode subdivisionIDs defined in CLDR, which are derived from ISO 3166-2 codes.)

Tag characters are default ignorable and invisible, so if a flag tag sequence is not supported on a particular system it will fallback to displaying as a waving black flag. Thus, if you have a web site showing two different flag characters together (for example the England and Scotland flags), they may display correctly on your browser, but some visitors using different browsers may only see two identical waving black flags, which can be a little confusing !

BabelStone Flags currently supports 80 sub-national flags for Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Iraq, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States:

• Austria: Burgenland (AT-1), Kärnten (AT-2), Niederösterreich (AT-3), Oberösterreich (AT-4), Salzburg (AT-5), Steiermark (AT-6), Tirol (AT-7), Vorarlberg (AT-8), Wien (AT-9).
• Belgium: Brussels-Capital Region (BE-BRU), Flemish Region (BE-VLG), Walloon Region (BE-WAL).
• Canada: Newfoundland and Labrador (CA-NL), Nunavut (CA-NU), Quebec (CA-QC).
• Switzerland: Fribourg (CH-FR), Luzern (CH-LU), Neuchâtel (CH-NE), Solothurn (CH-SO), Schwyz (CH-SZ), Ticino (CH-TI), Valais (VS), Zug (CH-ZG), Zürich (CH-ZH).
• China: Hong Kong SAR (CN-HK = HK), Macau SAR (CN-MO = MO).
• Germany: Bavaria (DE-BY).
• Spain: Catalonia (ES-CT), Basque Country (ES-PV).
• France: Bretagne (FR-BRE).
• United Kingdom: England (GB-ENG), Scotland (GB-SCT), Wales (GB-WLS), Northern Ireland (GB-NIR); Anglesey (GB-AGY), Cornwall (GB-CON), Devon (GB-DEV), Dorset (GB-DOR), Flintshire (GB-FLN), Monmouthshire (GB-MON), Northumberland (GB-NBL), Orkney Islands (GB-ORK), Pembrokeshire (GB-PEM), Surrey (GB-SRY), Vale of Glamorgan (GB-VGL), Shetland Islands (GB-ZET).
• Ireland: Connacht (IE-C), Leinster (IE-L), Munster (IE-M), Ulster (IE-U).
• Iraq: Iqlīm Kūrdistān / Herêm-î Kurdistan (IQ-KR).
• Netherlands: Friesland (NL-FR), Aruba (NL-AW = AW), Curaçao (NL-CW = CW), Sint Maarten (NL-SX = SX), Bonaire (NL-BQ1 = BQ-BO), Saba (NL-BQ2 = BQ-SA), Sint Eustatius (NL-BQ3 = BQ-SE).
• United States: Alaska (US-AK), Alabama (US-AL), Arizona (US-AZ), California (US-CA), Colorado (US-CO), District of Columbia (US-DC), Hawaii (US-HI), Indiana (US-IN), Maryland (US-MD), New Mexico (US-NM), Puerto Rico (US-PR = PR), South Carolina (US-SC), Tennessee (US-TN), Texas (US-TX), United States Minor Outlying Islands (US-UM = UM).

Only three of these are recommended for implementation by the Unicode Consortium (flags for England, Scotland, and Wales), but the rest are not recommended not to be implemented. Note that there is no official flag for Northern Ireland, but as the Ulster Banner is used to represent Northern Ireland in major international sporting competitions such as the FIFA World Cup, this flag is used for GB-NIR in BabelStone Flags. The synonym for Wales, GB-CYM, defined in BS 6879 but not listed in ISO 3166-2, is also supported in BabelStone Flags.

BabelStone Flags also includes five flags for historic English, Scottish and Welsh counties that do not have an ISO 3166-2 code. In these cases I have made up an unofficial GB code with "X" as the first letter of the subdivision code (e.g. GB-XCR for Caernarfonshire). These are indicated with three stars in the table of Flags for ISO 3166-2 Country Subdivision Codes below.

Zero Width Joiner (ZWJ) Sequences

In addition to the geo-political flags, BabelStone Flags also supports the Rainbow flag, Transgender flag, Pirate flag, and Australian Aboriginal flag. These are not single Unicode characters, but are represented as the following Emoji ZWJ Sequences (NB the sequence for the Australian Aboriginal flag is unofficial, and is not defined in the Unicode Standard) :

• <1F3F3 FE0F 200D 1F308> 🏳️‍🌈 (Waving White Flag, VS16, ZWJ, Rainbow) = Rainbow Flag
• <1F3F3 FE0F 200D 26A7 FE0F> 🏳️‍⚧️ (Waving White Flag, VS16, ZWJ, Male with Stroke and Male and Female Sign, VS16) = Transgender Flag
• <1F3F4 200D 2620 FE0F> 🏴‍☠️ (Waving Black Flag, ZWJ, Skull and Crossbones, VS16) = Pirate Flag
• <1F3F4 200D 1F998> 🏴‍🦘 (Waving Black Flag, ZWJ, Kangaroo) = Australian Aboriginal flag designed by Harold Thomas. Now available for non-commercial usage following the transfer of copyright to the Commonwealth of Australia. NB I am unable to include the Torres Strait Islander Flag designed by Bernard Namok in this font because its use is still strictly restricted by copyright.

I have tested BabelStone Flags under Windows 10 on the latest versions of Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, and they all display the Rainbow and Pirate flags correctly. The Rainbow and Pirate flags also display correctly on Microsoft Word 2016 (but no longer display correctly for me on Microsoft Word 2019).

Display of Colour Flag Glyphs in Microsoft Word 2016

Glyphs

Colour Glyphs

The colour glyphs are created using the High-Logic FontCreator font editor. The glyphs are not emoji-style (waving flag), but attempt to accurately reproduce the proportions and colours of the flags as a flat design. All flag glyphs have the same height, but have differing widths depending upon the flag proportions (1:1, 1:2, 2:3, and 3:5 being the most common proportions). Except for the flag of Nepal, all glyphs are square or rectangular in shape, with no flagpole. The glyphs do not have an added border line, so if displayed on a white background any flags with a white background or large sections of white (e.g. flags for Japan, Korea, Russia, and Zug) merge into the surrounding background. It is therefore best to display the flags on a background colour that is not normally used as a flag colour, such as light grey or beige.

Colour Flag Glyphs at 48 points in Firefox browser

Monochrome Glyphs

If a particular software application supports the OpenType features used to substitute single glyphs for Regional Indicator sequences or flag emoji tag sequences, but it does not support the colour glyph format, then it will display fallback monochrome glyphs provided by the BabelStone Flags font. These monochrome glyphs are all in the form of a waving flag (with a flagpole on the left) with the two-letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code on the flag. For flags corresponding to ISO 3166-2 subdivision codes the two- or three-letter code after the hyphen is placed under the flag.

Due to a bug in Chrome which displays the width of the colour glyphs as the width of the fallback monochrome glyph, the monochrome glyphs in BabelStone Flags have two dots on either side of the flag so that the monochrome glyph is exactly the same width as the corresponding colour glyph.

Monochrome Fallback Glyphs for Country Flags in BabelPad

Supported Flags

The tables below render each flag character in the BabelStone Flags font, either using the font installed on your local machine or using a WOFF font if the font is not installed on your local machine.

Flags for ISO 3166-1 Country Codes

This table lists the 167 ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes supported by the BabelStone Flags font. These include 159 officially assigned codes, four exceptionally reserved codes (CP, EU, SU, and UN), two transitional reserved codes (CS and YU), one deleted code (DD), and one user-assigned code (XK). Currently 90 officially assigned codes are not yet supported in the font.

Flags for ISO 3166-2 Country Subdivision Codes

This table lists the 80 ISO 3166-2 country subdivision codes that are supported by the BabelStone Flags font. The four codes marked with three stars (***) are unofficial codes that I have devised for places that do not have an ISO 3166-2 code (currently these are all traditional English, Scottish, or Welsh counties that do not correspond to modern administrative districts). Seven of the codes listed are treated as aliases for ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes, and share the same flag glyph, and three NL codes are treated as aliases for BQ codes. Therefore there are actually only 70 separate flag glyphs in the font for this table.

Zero Width Joiner (ZWJ) Flag Sequences

Private Use Area Flags

Unsupported ISO 3166-1 Country Codes

The BabelStone Flags font currently supports 159 out of the 249 officially assigned ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes. The following 90 codes are not yet supported, although I hope to eventually support them all.

OpenType Features

Version History

Download

BabelStone Flags is licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which means you are free to use it for personal or commercial purposes, and to redistribute it by itself or as part of a free or commercial software package, just as long as you do not sell the font on its own. The license also allows you to modify the font in any way you like, as long as the modified font does not use "BabelStone" in its name. Please read the license for details.

NB The WOFF and WOFF2 fonts are for web hosting, and are not required by most users.

• Download BabelStone Flags (dual COLR/CPAL and SVG formats) [WOFF WOFF2] v. 4.08 (2024-04-17)

If you have difficulty displaying or printing some or all of the flag glyphs then you may wish to try the "BabelStone Flags PUA" font which does not use OpenType features to render character sequences as glyphs, but maps all the flag glyphs to the Private Use Area (PUA) only. Country and region flags are mapped to the PUA in alphabetical two-letter code sequence from E000 (AA) through E2A3 (ZZ), and other flags are mapped to E2B0 through E43F (mapping table and clone of this page using PUA characters). However, I cannot get Word to print the colour flags or save them correctly to pdf (this seems to be an issue Word has with PUA characters, because the colour glyphs print correctly if they are mapped to ASCII characters) — if anyone knows how to get Word to behave itself then please let me know.

• Download BabelStone Flags PUA (COLR/CPAL format) [WOFF WOFF2] v. 4.07 (2023-05-18)

BabelStone Maritime (ASCII-mapped Maritime Signal Flags)

BabelStone Fonts