State flags quiz

Seal on a blue field

The hardest questions are the flags that put the state seal or coat of arms on a blue background. More than a dozen states use a version of this design, including Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin. Look for small clues: Kansas has a sunflower above the seal and KANSAS below it, Montana has its name in gold letters above the seal, and South Dakota rings its seal with a serrated gold sun.

Flags you can spot from a distance

The easiest flags have bold, simple designs. New Mexico’s red Zia sun on yellow, Alaska’s gold Big Dipper and North Star on dark blue, Arizona’s copper star and sunset rays, Colorado’s red C and Texas’s single star are hard to mistake. California’s grizzly bear, Maryland’s black-and-gold and red-and-white quarters, and South Carolina’s white palmetto and crescent are just as distinctive. Ohio’s is the only flag that is not a rectangle.

The new flags

Three flags have changed recently, so older quizzes may show the wrong ones. Mississippi adopted a flag with a white magnolia in 2021. Utah’s 2024 flag has a beehive and five mountain peaks on blue, white and red bands, and Minnesota’s 2024 flag shows an eight-pointed North Star beside a dark blue shape based on the state’s outline. Every state’s flag page explains what each part of the design means.