A country flag image could be used for any number of reasons, perhaps the most popular method would be on a web site which allows the user to either select the language of their choice or to access the site-version dedicated to their country. The problem is that there are many, many sites were you can download and use the national flag image of your choice, but the most of these are pretty bland and basic and don’t really offer the graphical expectations of modern web design. We want better.
An excellent substitute for flag images would be to use one of the, sadly so few, professionally designed country flag icon-sets that are freely available. And that is what we have found for you today:
Flags Icons by IconDrawer
This set by IconDrawer, consists of 278 free flag icons representing countries and unions from all over the world. They are all in .png format and sized at: 16×16px, 24×24px, 32×32px and 48×48px.
License: Linkware License. (You can purchase a royalty-free license for $60)
Flags Icons by IconDrawer →
Country Flag Icons for iPhone Maps
The Country Flag Icons for the iPhone come in .png, .ico and .icns formats. Available sizes include: 256×256px, 128×128px, 64×64px, 48×48px, 32×32px and 16×16px. There are 230 country icons in the set.
License: Free for non-commercial use.
Country Flag Icons for iPhone Maps →
Ultimate Free Web Designer’s Icon Set + Flag Icons
This icon set, from Smashing Magazine, is a huge collection of icons that focus on web design: web application icons, user interface icons, e-commerce icons,blog icons, smiley icons, button icons, keyboard icons and, of course, national flags icons. There are a total of 94 flag icons in the set.
License: You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes.
Ultimate Free Web Designer’s Icon Set + Flag Icons →
famfamfam Flag Icons
There 247 icons in the “Flags” icon set from famfamfam, in .gif and .png formats and all representing most countries in the world as small pixel icons.
License: They are available to use freely for any purpose with no requirement for attribution.
famfamfam Flag Icons →
Free Country Flag Icons
There are 37 country flag icons in this set, they are rendered at 256×256px, 128×128px, 64×64px, 48×48px, 32×32px and 16×16px and come in .png, .ico and ,icns formats.
License: All of the icons contained in this set are free for non-commercial use. For commercial use or for extending the existing set please contact CustomIconDesign.com.
Free Country Flag Icons →
172 Final Flag Icons
There are 172 icons in this set, they render at 256×256px, 128×128px, 64×64px, 48×48px, 32×32px, 24×24px and 16×16 pixels and are .png, .ico and .icns formats.
License: Free for non-commercial use.
172 Final Flag Icons →
Flags of the World Icons
Flags of the World is a collection of 18pxx12px icons in .gif format.
License: Creative Commons licence: Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales. This means you are free to use them for both personal and commercial work, as long as you do not sell them.
Flags of the World Icons →
Phoca World Flag Icon
Phoca World Flag Icon set includes 252 icons in .gif and .png formats. They are sized at 16x12px and 22x14px.
License: You are free to use them for both personal and commercial work, as long as you do not sell them.
Phoca World Flag Icon →
Flags of all Countries – National Flag Icons
The National Flag Icons are a collection of 250 individual icons, in .png format and sized at 48x48px, 32x32px and 16x16px.
Flags of all Countries – National Flag Icons →
Flag Favicons
These basic (and slightly old-fashioned) world flag icons were created many years ago when the standard color and size formats recommended were 16 colors and 16X16 respectively. They come in .ico format and are sized at 16x16px.
License: These are free to download, use and modify in any way you like.
Flag Favicons →
Flag Icons Search Engine
flag.redpixart.com is a flag icon search engine that has high quaility icons of more than 190 countries. Each icon has serval file formats, such as PNG, GIF and JPG, and you can browse and download them for either Windows, Macintosh or Linux Systems.
License: All icons are free to use for non-commercial purposes, but part of copyright belongs to the original designer. If you want to use icons for any commercial purpose, you have to give credit to the individual artist.
Flag Icons Search Engine →
50 iPhone Styled Flag Buttons
License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
50 iPhone Styled Flag Buttons →
Flag Button Devkit from Bartelme Design
This is a Photoshop and Illustrator development kit for creating flag buttons. After downloading the kit, to create a new button, just duplicate a layer group and paste the new flag into the respective layer. It’s as simple as that.
Flag Button Devkit from Bartelme Design →
