Countries With Stars on Their Flags

All 68 flags, ranked by star count, and the rule I used to count them.

By Ziga StrausUpdated 22 Oct 2026 · 4 min read

Close view of the stars and stripes on the American flag.
Photo: Steppe Walker, Pexels
the short answer
68 countries have at least one star on their national flag. That counts the 193 UN members plus Vatican City and Palestine, and it counts stars inside a coat of arms. The United States has the most with 50, then Brazil with 27 and Uzbekistan with 12.
68Countries50USA27Brazil38One star

How many countries have stars on their flags?

I count 68. The list covers the 195 countries most people mean: the 193 UN member states plus the two observer states, Vatican City and Palestine. A star counts wherever it sits on the national flag, including inside a coat of arms or a seal. Suns and moons do not count, even when they have pointed rays.

Published counts run from 59 at WorldAtlas to "around 70" at Statista. WorldAtlas's list of 59 leaves out a dozen flags that do carry a star, half of them star-and-crescent flags such as Turkey, Pakistan and Algeria, and it includes Kosovo, the Northern Mariana Islands and Nepal, whose flag has a sun and a moon.

The rest of the spread comes from the rule. Five flags only have stars inside a coat of arms or seal: Croatia, Equatorial Guinea, Moldova, Paraguay and Slovenia. Leave those out and you get 63. Add flags that are not UN members, such as Kosovo, the Cook Islands and Niue, and you pass 70.

All 68 flags with stars: star count, star colour and what the stars stand for · CSV

Which flag has the most stars?

The United States, with 50 white stars, one for each state. Brazil is second with 27, one for each of its 26 states and the Federal District. Uzbekistan is third with 12, then Cape Verde and Dominica with 10 each.

Brazil's stars change with its map. It added one in 1960 for the new state of Guanabara, one in 1968 for Acre and four in 1992. The Marshall Islands hold a different record: their single white star has 24 points, the most of any national flag, one for each electoral district.

Every flag with two or more stars

Thirty flags carry more than one star. On most of them the number means something you can count: states, islands, parishes or provinces. The table sorts by star count.

  • United States
    United States
    Stars:
    50
    What they stand for:
    One for each state
  • Brazil
    Brazil
    Stars:
    27
    What they stand for:
    The 26 states and the Federal District
  • Uzbekistan
    Uzbekistan
    Stars:
    12
    What they stand for:
    The regions, and the old Uzbek calendar
  • Cape Verde
    Cape Verde
    Stars:
    10
    What they stand for:
    The ten islands
  • Dominica
    Dominica
    Stars:
    10
    What they stand for:
    The ten parishes
  • Tuvalu
    Tuvalu
    Stars:
    9
    What they stand for:
    The nine islands, placed as they lie on the map
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina
    Bosnia and Herzegovina
    Stars:
    9
    What they stand for:
    Europe: seven full stars and two halves
  • Venezuela
    Venezuela
    Stars:
    8
    What they stand for:
    The seven provinces that signed independence, plus Guayana
  • Grenada
    Grenada
    Stars:
    7
    What they stand for:
    Six parishes, plus Carriacou and Petite Martinique
  • Tajikistan
    Tajikistan
    Stars:
    7
    What they stand for:
    Seven, a number of perfection in Persian tradition

Countries with 5 stars on their flag

Seven flags have exactly five stars: China, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands and Turkmenistan. Papua New Guinea and Samoa show the Southern Cross, the constellation that is also on the flags of Australia (five stars plus one) and New Zealand (four).

The rest are easy to tell apart. China's are yellow on red, one big and four small. Singapore's five white stars form a ring beside a crescent. Turkmenistan's also sit beside a crescent, next to a red stripe of carpet patterns. Honduras has five blue stars on its white band, and the Solomon Islands keep five white stars in the top corner.

Flags with 2, 3 or 4 stars

  • Four stars: Comoros (its four islands), Micronesia (its four states) and New Zealand (the Southern Cross, red with white edges).
  • Three stars: Burundi, the Philippines and Syria, plus Slovenia, whose three gold stars sit in its coat of arms.
  • Two stars: Panama, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and São Tomé and Príncipe, plus Croatia, whose two tiny stars are in the crown above its checkerboard shield.

Syria's flag is the one older quizzes get wrong. The red, white and black flag with two green stars is gone. The green, white and black flag with three red stars, known as the independence flag, became the national flag in the Constitutional Declaration of March 2025.

Flags with one star

Thirty-eight flags have a single star, more than all the others put together. The star is often the only thing that sets the flag apart, so learn these by the star's colour and where it sits. Eight of them pair it with a crescent: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Libya, Malaysia, Mauritania, Pakistan, Tunisia and Turkey. The crescent moon flags have their own article.

  • Algeria
    Algeria
    The star:
    Red star and crescent on green and white
  • Angola
    Angola
    The star:
    Yellow star above a machete and half a cogwheel
  • Azerbaijan
    Azerbaijan
    The star:
    White eight-pointed star beside a crescent
  • Burkina Faso
    Burkina Faso
    The star:
    Yellow star across the red and green bands
  • Cameroon
    Cameroon
    The star:
    Yellow star on the red middle band
  • Central African Republic
    Central African Republic
    The star:
    Yellow star in the top left corner
  • Chile
    Chile
    The star:
    White star in a blue square
  • Cuba
    Cuba
    The star:
    White star in a red triangle
  • DR Congo
    DR Congo
    The star:
    Yellow star in the top left corner
  • Djibouti
    Djibouti
    The star:
    Red star in a white triangle

Flags with white stars

White is the most common colour for a star. Fourteen of the flags with several stars use only white ones: Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Comoros, Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Turkmenistan, the United States, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.

Fourteen single-star flags have a white star too: Azerbaijan, Chile, Cuba, East Timor, Jordan, Liberia, Libya, the Marshall Islands, Myanmar, Nauru, Pakistan, Somalia, Togo and Turkey. Yellow comes second. The CSV gives the colour of every flag's stars.

Stars I did not count

  • Nepal's flag has a moon and a sun, not stars. Namibia, Kiribati, Kazakhstan, Argentina and Uruguay fly a sun as well.
  • Bolivia and Costa Rica add a coat of arms with stars (ten and seven) to the flag their governments fly, but the everyday flag has none.
  • Iraq removed its three green stars in 2008, and Syria no longer uses its two-star flag.
  • Kosovo has six white stars, one for each of its six main ethnic groups, but it is not a UN member. The Cook Islands (15 stars, one per island) and Niue (5) are self-governing islands in free association with New Zealand.

Can you name them against the clock?

Flag Rush shows a flag and four names: pick the right country before the stopwatch runs out.

Play Flag Rush

Questions people ask

Which country's flag has the most stars?

The United States, with 50 stars, one for each state. Brazil is second with 27 and Uzbekistan third with 12.

Which countries have 5 stars on their flag?

Seven: China, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands and Turkmenistan.

Which countries have 2 stars on their flag?

Panama, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Croatia has two as well, but they are tiny and sit in the crown of its coat of arms.

How many countries have stars on their flags?

68 of the 195 UN members and observer states, counting stars inside a coat of arms. Leave out the five whose stars are only in a coat of arms or seal and it is 63.

Sources

Ziga Straus

I'm Ziga, a developer in the EU. I build and run Geography Games on my own. More about the site

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