FIAV Flag Information Symbols

Last modified: 2003-08-30 by phil nelson
Keywords: symbols | flag information symbols |
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• Useage Symbols
• Tenora's Extension to Smith's Symbols
• About the vexsymb.ttf

• FIAV Flag Information Code
• Flag Information Protocol (FIP)
• Vexillological Reference
• FOTW Topical Index

The symbols were adopted by FIAV in the early 1970's as the standards to use when describing flag usage by "shorthand". The complete listing of those symbols adopted are as listed in Smiith's 1975 and 1980 books.
David Martcuci, 07 July 1997

The sixty-four grids for representing a flag are based upon the general useage of the flag. The first row represents land use, the second sea use, each divided into Civil (private), Nation (state/government) and Military use (war flag).

The 64 grids follow:

	No attributes selected		Civil flag
	War ensign		Civil flag/war ensign
	State ensign		Civil flag and state ensign
	State and war ensign		Civil flag, state and war ensign
	Civil ensign		Civil flag and ensign
	Civil ensign and war flag		Civil flag/ensign and war ensign
	Civil and state ensign		Civil flag and ensign, state ensign
	National ensign		Civil flag and national ensign
	War flag		Civil and war flag
	War flag and ensign		Civil flag and war flag and ensign
	War flag and state ensign		Civil and war flag and state ensign
	War flag and state and war ensign		Civil and war flag, state and war ensign
	War flag and civil ensign		Civil and war flag and civil ensign
	War flag and civil and war ensign		Civil and war flags and ensigns
	War flag and civil and state ensign		Civil and war flag and civil and state ensign
	War flag and national ensign		Civil and war flag and national ensign
	State flag		Civil and state flag
	State flag and war ensign		Civil and state flag and war ensign
	State flag and ensign		Civil/State flag and state ensign
	State flag and state and war ensign		Civil and state flag, state and war ensign
	State flag and civil ensign		Civil and state flag and civil ensign
	State flag and civil and war ensign		Civil and state flag, civil and war ensign
	State flag and state/civil ensign		Civil and state flags and ensigns
	State flag and national ensign		Civil and state flag and national ensign
	State and war flag		National flag on land
	State flag and war flag and ensign		National flag and war ensign
	State flag and ensign and war flag		National flag and state ensign
	State/War flag and ensign		National flag, state and war ensign
	State/War flag and civil ensign		National flag and civil ensign
	State/War flag and civil and war ensign		National flag and civil and war ensign
	State and war flag, civil and state ensign		National flag and civil and state ensign
	State and war flag and national ensign		National flag and ensign

by Antonio Martins

In the above, the use of the word "state" is to imply the nation; however, when all three elements of a row are identified in use for a particular flag, the use will be identified as "National". [Ed.]

Complementing Smith’s flag information symbols, Jiří Tenora proposed in Flag Data Bank 5/96: p. 8-10 [fdb] and Vexilla Belgica 1986: 93 [vxb] a set of symbols to be used in chronological tables describing a flag and illustrating it’s evolution:

()	variant	<<	before
:	official proportions	/	between
	unofficial proportions	( )	explanation
	approximate proportions	?	doubtful, approximate data
:?	unknown proportions	%	loss of independence
	proportions not defined	&	personal union
:	proportions not defined, but known	!	established, introduced, proclaimed
	in use since	X	abolished, repealed, desintegrated
|	again in use since	N	new name
	officially hoisted	!!	renewal
	introduced by law	.	missing data
	int. by constitution	:	end of a chapter
	officially authorised	=	name in official language
	ceased to be valid	*	taking effect
<	past times	|	more lines
>	future

António Martins

(Note: Non-ASCII7 symbols on this table are in-line GIFs by Zeljko Heimer and António Martins, under the same copyright understanding as any other image on this website; see Disclaimer and Copyright)

About the font vexsymb.ttf

This font is in the format TrueType (.TTF), for Windows, and it is free to use and copy (provided no modification is made and authorship is credited to António Martins when used in a published medium). Any comments and corrections are greatly welcome at this address <antonio@tuvalkin.web.pt>. (One error already detected will be fixed in a coming update: the font name is incorrectly spelt as "Vexilogical Symbols".)

The used characters are fr2/=qxohp?BGMNOPRVWY; I tryed to make them mnemonic and evitated to repeat glyphs already covered by standard fonts / encodings (especially Microsoft’s Symbol font and any fonts encoded with ISO 8859-1 aka ANSI or Latin1). In this font, symbols other than these appear as a blank squares.

Character mapping:

Character		Glyph	Remarks
f	102		normal flag
h	104		historical flag
p	112		proposed flag
r	114		reverse
2	50		alternate
/	47		de facto
?	63		reconstruction
=	61		two-sided
q	113		sinister hoisted
x	120		no flag
o	111		officially authorised
BGMNO PRVWY		Pietra Santa hatching patterns, according to the usual one letter abbreviations

Other symbols can be composed with usual characters of regular fonts or with combinations of those and the above. TrueType font with dot-in-grid symbols will be released soon.
António Martins