Union of South American Nations

The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR in its Spanish acronym) is an organization formed by the 12 independent nations of South America (with Mexico and Panama as associate members).

Although apparently unofficial, a flag appears on most of the meetings of the organizations (like that, that occurred this month).


The flag is blue with a white logo. The use of logos on flags is common between international organizations, but may result in bad results, specially if the logo is too abstract or two complex; what's not UNASUR flag's case. The logo, similar to a whirl, remembers the shape of the South American continent. Reported variants have the "UNASUR" word either above or below the logo.

The flag is considerably different from the proposed flag given by Peruvian then-president Alan García to the president of Chile and then pro-tempo president of UNASUR, Michelle Bachelet, on its constitution summit.


The flag presented by García was red, with a golden silhouette of South America inscribed in a golden ring. That flag was inspired by a design by his party's founder, Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre (1895-1979). Haya's design, however, had the map of the whole Latin America instead of South America only.

Comments are welcome.

Crimea

The flag of Crimea has appeared on many newspapers on last days. This post will not discuss the politics related, but the flag itself.

If you read or watch news recurrently, it's very possible that you have saw this flag:


If you look carefully, the design is rare and curious.The central stripes is too wide compared to whole flag. The reason is it isn't an untouched flag. In 1992, five flag proposals were presented to the Crimean parliament, that chose proposal #5, by A. Malgin and V. Trusov, that was identical to current flag, except for a detail...


Yes, the coat of arms. The white area was originally destined to it, but Crimean parliament decided not to use the arms on the flag, leaving it blank. Vexillology is also made by intentions and should-bes...

I don't know any documents containing the rationale of each of the submitted proposals at the time. While the colors are the same of the coat of arms, it's not clear if the use of Pan-Slavic (or, more specifically, Russian) colors were intentional.

Comments are welcome.