Paint the Flag
A geography coloring game from Geography Games. You get a blank flag with only its outlines — paint every stripe the right color from memory, then compare your flag with the real one.
About Paint the Flag
Paint the Flag is a free flag coloring game on Geography Games. You're shown a country's flag with all the color stripped out — just white stripes and black outlines — and a palette of 20 colors. Your job is to remember which color goes where and paint every stripe correctly.
It sounds easy until you try it. Is the Netherlands' blue the same as Luxembourg's? Which end of Germany's flag is black? Does Ireland's flag start with green or orange? Paint the Flag tests the flag knowledge you think you have — and the palette includes traps like maroon vs. red (looking at you, Latvia) and light blue vs. blue.
Two modes are live now (Daily Challenge and Singleplayer) with 30 striped flags from every continent. Flags with emblems, stars and crosses are coming in future updates, along with multiplayer 1v1.
How to Play Paint the Flag
Each round follows the same simple loop. Most flags take under a minute.
You get the country's name and its flag with only the stripe outlines — no colors, no reference image.
Choose from the 20-color palette. The correct colors are always in there — hidden among distractors like teal, olive and lavender.
Tap a stripe to fill it with the selected color. Painted the wrong one? Just pick another color and paint over it. White stripes must be painted too!
Once every stripe is painted, hit Finish. Your flag is shown above the real one so you can see exactly which stripes you got right.
Scoring is area-weighted from 0 to 100 — bigger stripes are worth more. A perfect flag makes you a certified Vexillologist.
Game Modes
Paint the Flag launches with two modes, with multiplayer 1v1 on the roadmap.
Daily Challenge Play →
One flag per UTC day, the same for every player worldwide. Paint it, get your score, and see where you land on the global daily leaderboard. One attempt per day — once you hit Finish, it's locked until the next reset.
- · Global leaderboard, resets at 00:00 UTC
- · Shareable score card with the country's flag and your score
- · ~30-day rotation before a flag repeats
Singleplayer (Random) Play →
Unlimited rounds of random flags — perfect for practice. Skip a flag you don't know, or replay one until you nail it. The same flag won't repeat within 10 rounds.
- · All 30 striped flags from every continent
- · Round counter and session best
- · Skip and replay freely — no lockouts
Multiplayer 1v1 Coming Soon
Race a friend on the same flag — fastest correct flag wins. Will reuse the real-time multiplayer infrastructure from Multiplayer Flags and Higher or Lower.
Today's Top 10
Paint the Flag FAQ
What is Paint the Flag?▼
Paint the Flag is a free flag coloring game on Geography Games. You're shown a country's flag with the colors removed — just white stripes with black outlines — and you paint every stripe the correct color from a 20-color palette. When you finish, your flag is compared stripe-by-stripe with the real one and scored from 0 to 100.
How does scoring work?▼
Scoring is area-weighted: each stripe is worth its share of the flag's area. On a three-equal-stripe flag like Germany, each stripe is worth about 33 points. On Latvia, the two wide maroon bands are worth more than the thin white one. A stripe only counts if you picked exactly the right palette color — close doesn't count.
Do I have to paint white stripes?▼
Yes. Unpainted stripes show a gray hatch pattern, and the Finish button stays locked until every stripe is painted — including white ones. Knowing that the middle of France is white is part of knowing the flag.
Are the wrong colors in the palette on purpose?▼
Absolutely. The 20-color palette always contains every color the flag needs, surrounded by distractors. Some are easy to dismiss (pink, lavender), but some are real vexillological traps: Latvia's stripes are maroon, not red, and Luxembourg's bottom stripe is light blue — that's the main difference from the Netherlands.
Which flags are in the game?▼
The launch pool has 30 flags that are made purely of stripes — no emblems or symbols. That includes classics like Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, trickier picks like Colombia, Thailand, Botswana and Armenia, and identical-twin flags like Romania and Chad. Flags with stars, crosses and emblems are planned for a future update.
How does the Daily Challenge work?▼
Every UTC day the Daily Challenge picks one flag deterministically, so every player in the world paints the same flag on the same day. You get one attempt; after you finish, it's locked until midnight UTC. Submit a name to appear on the global daily leaderboard.
Can I fix a stripe I painted wrong?▼
Yes — until you press Finish, you can repaint any stripe as many times as you like. Just select a different color and tap the stripe again. There's no penalty for repainting.
Can I play on mobile?▼
Yes. Painting is tap-based — pick a color, tap a stripe — so it works great with one thumb on a phone. No drawing precision required.
Do I need to sign up?▼
No. Paint the Flag and every other game on Geography Games is free with no sign-up. Daily leaderboard entries are tracked anonymously by a browser cookie — submit a display name after finishing a daily and it shows on the board.
About This Game
We are using the REST Countries API for the game logic.
Interactive map powered by Leaflet. Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC BY 3.0.
Data by OpenStreetMap, under ODbL.
