FIFA Women’s World Cup – A Fun Facts About Flags special – Group C

The Women’s Football World Cup is well underway and we’re celebrating with a series of posts bringing you fun facts about the flags of the teams in each group.

Today, we’re looking at the flags of the countries in group C: Costa Rica, Japan, Spain and Zambia.

Costa Rica

The Costa Rica flag has five horizontal bands of blue, white, red (double height), white and blue.

Did you know:

• The Costa Rica flag takes inspiration from the French flag.
• Previous versions of the flag include a red six-pointed star on a white background and a blue-yellow-blue horizontal striped flag.
• The flag is almost identical to the flag of Thailand, but with the blue and red colours reversed.

Japan

The Japan flag has a red circle in the centre of a white background.

Did you know:

• The flag of Japan is called Nisshoki which means ‘Flag of the Sun’
• The Japanese flag came into law in 1999.
• The largest Japanese flag is 9m tall x 13.6m wide. It weighs 108lbs.

Spain

The Spanish flag has two horizontal red stripes at the top and bottom, with a yellow-gold double-height stripe across the middle. The Spanish coat of arms is positioned off-set to the left in the yellow-gold stripe.

Did you know:

• There have been many versions of the Spanish flag over the centuries, probably due to different empires ruling at different times.
• The colours of the Spanish flag were chosen by Charles III in 1760.
• There are strict rules on how the national flag should be handled.

Zambia

The Zambia flag is mainly green with three bands of colour (red, black and orange) in the bottom corner. An eagle is above the coloured bands.

Did you know:

• The flag was adopted in 1964 when North Rhodesia gained independence and was renamed Zambia.
• The green colour in the flag was lightened in 1996.
• Each element of the flag has a meaning. The green represents the country’s vegetation, the red symbolises the struggle for freedom, the black represents the people and the orange symbolises wealth. The eagle is to symbolise the people of the nation rising above problems.

Check back in the coming days when we’ll be exploring fun facts about the flags of the country’s in Group D of the FIFA Women’s World Cup: China, Denmark, England and Haiti.