Do you know the aspect ratio of the flag of the United States? No? Care to guess?
I'll bet you didn't guess 10:19, which is the correct answer. This is not surprising, since this shape is only shared by three other countries1. Can you guess which they are? Probably not, since the correct answer here is Liberia, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia.
Most countries use either a 2:3 or 1:2 aspect ratio (86 and 51 countries, respectively). I refer to this latter set of countries as the "wide screen" set, because 1:2 is almost the widest flag shape seen in the world today (see below for the two exceptions). The third most popular aspect ration is 3:5, which is used by 18 countries, and falls nicely between 1:2 and 2:3 in its widescreen-ness. Coming between 3:5 and 2:3 is 5:8, which is shared by 7 countries. With these groupings out of the way, the remaining flags of the world are all of rather odd shapes (granted they're all2 right rhomboids... but if there is a word similar to oblateness or eccentricity for rectangles, I don't know what it is).
We've already covered the 10:19 set, which is the next most popular shape with 4 countries participating, and is almost as wide as the widescreen set.
So now let's take a look at those countries that really wanted to break the mold and have a flag of a really weird shape—ostensibly for the purposes of making an accurate depiction of the flag in ASCII art require a really really big canvas. First, the ultra-widescreeners:
Rwanda comes in second place with a 6:13 aspect ratio. The big winner is Qatar, with a 11:28 aspect ratio. I mean look at this thing—it's more of a banner than a flag.
At the other end of the spectrum are the squares and square wannabes. Switzerland comes in with 1:1, the only square flag. Belgium is close, with a 13:15 aspect ratio. Third place goes to Denmark at 28:37.
Papua New Guinea, at 3:4, has the distinction of being the only country with a flag that will perfectly fill up a standard-definition television screen without distortion or letterboxing. Note that there are no 9:16 flags, so all of you high-def early adopters will just have to deal with letter boxes and side bars when you buy your Blu-ray copy of "Flags Gone Wild: Too Hot for TV."
Israel and Norway share an aspect ratio of 8:11, and very little else. Albania and Iceland share 5:7. Andorra, Brazil, and Japan share 7:10. Djibouti, Iran, and Mexico share 4:7.
Here are some more countries with their own special aspect ratios: Estonia with the convenient 7:11, Finland with 11:18, Myanmar with 5:9.
Finally, my favorite: El Salvador. Why is it my favorite? Because they really dare to be different. Not only do they have a unique aspect ratio, but they aren't afraid to pick one that is really really weird. Notice that all of the countries mentioned so far (and that's all of the countries except two) have an aspect ratio that can be represented as a ratio of two small numbers. I know Denmark is a bit of an outlier, but that's just how they roll. Anyway, back to El Salvador. Here, they feel very strongly about their 189:335 flag aspect ratio. Yowzer. It's only slightly wider screen than 4:7... but that would fail to convey the complexity and uniqueness of the El Salvadorian people, which is really the sort of thing the aspect ratio of one's flag should denote. Just look at this bad boy.
I'd suggest a flag that had a ratio of γ:π or something, but being a ratio of transcendental numbers, this flag would be impossible to accurately manufacture.
The only country I haven't touched on here is Nepal, largely because they cheated and don't have a rectangular flag at all. It's sort of two triangles that overlap a bit. It's the only country that has a non-rectangular flag, and the only flag that is taller than it is wide (take that, Switzerland).
How do you suppose countries come up with the aspect ratio for their flag?
1: For the purposes of this examination, I am only looking at countries that are currently recognized as independent by the UN.
2: Not really. See Nepal.
