[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I won't apologize for this but my favorite is the STARS and STRIPES and no other one even comes close.

Good choice. I always thought that the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack had the advantage of being distinctive, readily identifiable, yet retain a simplicity and economy of design.

Other good designs are the Japanese Meatball (ok, Rising Sun) , the South Korean Yin and Yang, and surprisingly the old Soviet Hammer and Sickle. Australia and New Zealand are ok, but I get them confused. The Maple Leaf is the perfect symbol of her country, modest and unpresuming, not especially inspiring or inspired.

Most European flags fail the distinctiveness test, Maryland's clearly fails the economy of design test. No good flag has a motto on it. I cannot think of a realy good state flag. Brazil, well, could a flag be more ugly?

[archy]

Other good designs are... the South Korean Yin and Yang....

The Korean term for their flag is the Tae Kuk and the technical term for that two-coloured design in its middle is the monad. The four 3-black-bar trigraph designs of the flag represent Earth, Water, Fire and Heaven.

During the Japanese occupation of the Second World War, possession of that Korean ensign was prohibited, enforced as a death penalty offence; yet once the Japs were gone, thousands of those Korean flags appeared as if by magic.

The addition of the blue portion of the monad over the bottom of the center design of a Japanese *meatball* Rising Sun flag, plus a few careful additions of the black lines of the trigrams gave the Koreans their flags back. I'm aware of only one other similar instance of such a convenient change of flag from one design to another.