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

The FIFA Women’s Football World Cup has already produced some great performances with superb skills on display! We’re celebrating the competition 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 G: Sweden, Italy, South Africa and Argentina.

Argentina

The flag of Argentina is a horizontal tricolour with stripes of light blue at the top and bottom with a white stripe in the middle. A Sun of May – the national symbol of Argentina – is in the middle of the white stripe.

Did you know:

• The Sun of May, or a similar design, was found engraved in the first coin of Argentina.
• The flag inspired other Central Amercian flags, including those of El Salvador, Uruguay, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras.
• The flag was designed in the 1800s by military leader General Manuel Belgrano.

Italy

The flag of Italy has a tricolour of three vertical stripes in green, white and red.

Did you know:

• 

  Former President Silvio Burlusconi attempted a slight change of colour for the flag, but the Italian people were displeased with this. A scheduled referendum on the matter was cancelled as it was accepted there was no way it could pass.

• The Italians are very proud of their flag, and celebrate it annually on Tricolour Day, every January 7th.
• The flag of Mexico is very similar to the flag of Italy – the shades of red and green are darker however, and the white stripe features the Mexican coat of arms.

South Africa

The flag of South Africa has a black isosceles triangle in the centre on the left, outlined in yellow. There is a horizontal green ‘Y’ shape, outlined in white, centrally dividing two coloured bands in red (at the top) and blue (at the bottom).

Did you know:

• The current flag was adopted in 1994 on the election of Nelson Mandela as President. It was only meant to serve as a temporary flag, but it has never been replaced.
• At the time of its adoption, it was the only national flag in the world to have six colours in its design.
• The national motto, “Unity is Strength”, is represented in the flag with the sideways Y bringing two stripes into one.

Sweden

The flag of Sweden has a blue background, with a gold Nordic cross – slightly offset to the left.

Did you know:

• It is thought that the Swedish flag was inspired by the Danish flag.
• The Aland islands, which is under Swedish rule, has a very similar flag to Sweden, with the addition of a red cross inside the gold cross.
• Flag Day in Sweden has been celebrated on 6th June since 1916. However the oldest recorded image of a blue flag with a yellow/gold cross dates back to 16th Century.

Check back in the coming days when we’ll be exploring fun facts about the flags of the country’s in Group H of the FIFA Women’s World Cup: Germany, Colombia, South Korea and Morocco.