Haiti vs Liechtenstein

Why people mix them up

The confusion is a famous flag story. At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Liechtenstein discovered that its blue-over-red flag was identical to Haiti's civil flag. The following year Liechtenstein added a gold crown in the upper hoist corner to tell them apart. Haiti's state flag carries its coat of arms on a white panel in the centre, but the plain two-stripe version is still widely shown, so in flag quizzes the two keep colliding. The countries themselves, a Caribbean nation and an Alpine microstate, have nothing else in common.

How to tell them apart

• Liechtenstein's flag has a gold crown in the top-left corner; Haiti's has either nothing or a coat of arms in the centre.
• Haiti is in the Caribbean, on the western third of Hispaniola; Liechtenstein is in the Alps between Switzerland and Austria.
• Haiti is about 170 times bigger, roughly 27,750 km² against 160 km², with about 11.5 million people against 40,000.
• Haiti's languages are French and Haitian Creole; Liechtenstein speaks German.
• Haiti's capital is Port-au-Prince; Liechtenstein's is Vaduz.
• Liechtenstein is doubly landlocked (both of its neighbours are landlocked too); Haiti has a long coastline and its only land border is with the Dominican Republic.

Memory hook

Liechtenstein is a principality, so it wears the crown. Haiti is the one without a crown and with a coat of arms, or nothing, in the middle.

On the map

For Haiti, find Cuba and move east to the next big island, Hispaniola; Haiti is the western third, the part with the two long peninsulas reaching towards Cuba and Jamaica. For Liechtenstein, find the border between Switzerland and Austria and zoom in hard on the Rhine valley; the tiny sliver on the eastern bank of the river, south of Lake Constance, is Liechtenstein.