Around 30 national flags use exactly two colours, with no third colour anywhere — no gold fringe on a coat of arms, no green disc. They are the minimalist end of vexillology, and because there are only so many ways to arrange two colours, several of them collide.
Red and white
The most common two-colour pair. Indonesia and Monaco are identical horizontal red-over-white bars, differing only in proportion. Poland is the same two colours reversed, white over red. Singapore and Bahrain and Qatar are red and white with added shapes. Japan is a red disc on white. Peru, Canada, Austria, Latvia, Malta, Tunisia, Turkey, Georgia, Denmark and Greenland all use red and white as their only colours (Georgia adds red crosses, still two colours).
Blue and white
- Greece — nine blue and white stripes with a canton cross.
- Argentina — pale blue and white bands (the sun makes it arguably three, since the sun is golden).
- El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala all use blue and white bands, though their central emblems bring in more colours.
- Somalia, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau — a single white or gold star or disc on blue.
- Finland and Israel — blue on white.
Green and white
Nigeria (green-white-green vertical bands), Pakistan (green with a white bar and a white crescent and star), Bangladesh's neighbour flags, and the historic flag of Nigeria's region. Saudi Arabia is green and white — green field, white script and sword.
Other pairs
- Red and yellow: Vietnam (yellow star on red), and historically several others.
- Blue and yellow: Ukraine (blue over yellow), Palau (yellow disc on blue).
- Red and blue: Haiti's older flag and a few regional flags; on current national flags this pair almost always includes white.
- Black and white: no national flag is only black and white, though several use them with one other colour.
The famous look-alikes
Indonesia and Monaco are the classic pair — both red over white, distinguishable only by shape (Monaco's is squarer). Poland is often confused with both because it is the same colours flipped. Learning to name these three apart quickly is a rite of passage for flag-quiz players.
Two-colour flags produce the cleanest colour breakdowns — often a near 50/50 split. Good practice for reading a flag by its proportions.
Play the flag pie chart game →