[Beck]

I have a question about a planned display of 24 national flags on a wall (birth countries of students and staff at a Jr. High School).
Is it a definite violation of protocol to display the 3'x5' flags on a 15' high wall in rows? I realize that the flags in the top row would be "higher" than the other flags. The U.S. flag would be uppermost viewer's left.
Also, is the alphabetical order of other countries mandatory? We may very well be adding new flags and it would be a lot more work to "insert" a flag rather than add it to the "end" of the display.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[dirtfisher@charter.net]

Beck - here is a link that might be of interest to you. It has all the information about flags and displaying flags. Below is rule #11 that might incourage you to place all the flags on staffs and display all in designated floor area at your school. Sounds like a real interesting project that you are working on.
The link is Flag Rules and Regulations

11. When flags of two or more nations are displayed, they are to be flown from separate staffs of the same height. The flags should be of approximately equal size. International usage forbids the display of the flag of one nation above that of another nation in time of peace. The order of precedence for flags generally is National flags (US first, then others in alphabetical order in English), State (host state first, then others in the order of admission) and territories (Washington DC, Puerto Rico, etc.), Military (in order of establishment: Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard), then other.

[american_flag_uk]

it is international code from the UN that no countries flag may be positioned above another so however nice your display might look it would not be right to position some national flags above others. if your suffering from lack of space how about in that area to put 15 8ft or 9ft flagpoles there on stands and have the flags hang on them???

and about ABC order yes the best way would be ABC order s that no other flag (barr the US flag) seems to take a more prominent position in ABC order it would be more fair! - and if you had the flags on upright standing flagpoles they would be easy to rearrange them in correct order when a new flag was put in

[Beck]

Thank you for the response.

Unfortunately, it's left us with a situation that may be difficult to resolve but I appreciate the correct information.

We are now in possesion of 24 flags that I don't know if we can properly display. There is no budget for poles and I don't think we have enough wall space for one row.

But thanks again for your input.

[Peter Ansoff]

We are now in possesion of 24 flags that I don't know if we can properly display.

One thing to remember is that the flag code rules are only guidelines. In this case, the intent of the rule was to avoid making it look like one country was "superior" to another. (It used to be the custom in wartime to fly your flag above the enemy's flag over captured ships and forts.) If you can work out a display that "looks right," I doubt that anyone will complain.

Peter Ansoff

[american_flag_uk]

ok so no flagpoles.... How wer you goign to display on the wall??? with drawing pins or clips or sumthing to hang them on the wall???

if that was so how about using one clip or a couple of pins per flag and huanging them each by their top left corner so they still hang down as they would if on flagpoles???
just an idea anyway!!

another idea would be if theat was not suitable to have the children at the school have a flag drawing competition and have all the flags drawn by the pupils and choose the best one for each nations flag and stick those to the wall as a display?