How the championship works
A nation is a large group of people who share a common culture, language, history and territory. Every month they compete on one question: who showed up?
Wealth of a Nation runs the International Flag Championship — the IFC. It is a live, monthly, worldwide competition between 120 nations, peoples and cultures. Each one gets an empty flag on the page. Each foreign flag holds exactly one million dots; each state flag holds one hundred thousand. Every dot costs one dollar. When you buy a dot, you choose where on your flag it lands, and your dot lights up in your flag's colors — permanently, with your first name and your city attached to it.
As the dots fill in, the flag appears. As flags fill faster than their neighbors, they climb the board and pass each other in real time. On the last midnight of every month the race closes, a winner is declared, and every flag on Earth goes empty again on the first.
THE IFC BRACKET
Every month the 32 flags with the most dots make the championship field. They are seeded 1 to 32 by where they finished last month, so last month's champion walks in as the top seed and a flag that surges from nowhere starts as the underdog.
The field plays down through five rounds: Round of 32, Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final 4 and Flag v Flag. There are no byes. Every flag in the field plays every round it reaches.
Every matchup is decided by dots cast this month. The flag with more dots advances. A tie goes to the higher seed.
Until the month closes, every result is live. A trailing flag can overtake at any moment and the whole bracket redraws as the dots come in. At midnight on the last day the bracket locks, and the flag left standing in Flag v Flag takes the month. Because every round counts the same dots, the IFC champion is always the flag with the most dots in the field.
Region, group-type and heritage filters build a bracket from the flags that match, for a regional crown and bragging rights. Only the full bracket crowns the IFC champion. If fewer than 32 flags match, the bracket starts at a later round rather than hand out byes.
POPULATION CLASSES
Not every flag has the people to compete with the biggest, so flags battle inside their own population class. Each class runs its own bracket and crowns its own champion every month.
Global Population (Foreign): Heavy Population is 100 million people or more · Middle Population is 15 to 100 million · Light Population is under 15 million. Above those three sits Overall Population: every flag in one bracket, whatever its size. Four champions are crowned each month, one for each population class.
US Population (Domestic): Heavy Population is 10 million residents or more · Middle Population is 5 to 10 million · Light Population is under 5 million. Three classes, three champions.
Broad global groups with no separate population count, such as Multiracial, run in Heavy Population.
A class with fewer than 32 flags starts its bracket at the Sweet 16 or Elite 8. Nobody gets a bye.
RACE FLAGS
Green — the month is open and the board is live. Every flag starts empty on the 1st.
White — the final lap: the last 24 hours before the month closes.
Checkered — the month is finished, the bracket is locked and the champion is crowned.
Blue — a flag is about to be passed. During the month it means the flag behind is closing fast enough to take the place within the hour. On a finished month it marks where the lead actually changed hands.
PROMOTERS
Each month a flag can be carried by a promoter — an athlete, artist or public figure who represents that flag and rallies its people to show up. Athletes already walk out under their country's flag. The IFC gives every flag the same.
A promoter is named on the flag they carry for the month and leads the push for it — online, on air and at events — from the first of the month to the final bell.
The rule that protects everyone applies to promoters too. A promoter may not buy dots on the flag they promote. Every promotion is disclosed publicly on the flag. Promoters have no say over standings, seeding, rules or results. The board is filled by people.
Promoter terms are confirmed only in a signed agreement. To promote a flag, write to enterprise@wealthofanation.com with the flag and the month.
THIS IS A HEADCOUNT, NOT A NET WORTH
The standings measure dots bought — how many people turned out for a flag this month, and what they were willing to put behind it. A small people with a loud diaspora beats a large quiet one. That is the whole game.
Income and net worth are a footnote here, kept on the back of each flag for reference only. They never move the standings.
ON THE INCOME FIGURES
Reference income figures shown on a flag come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey detailed-ancestry tables. Figures that could not be traced to a Census or Pew table are marked unverified and are not used for ranking.
FLAGS OVERLAP ON PURPOSE
Country flags run alongside peoples and ancestries. A Nigerian-American can cast dots for the United States, for Nigerian and for Pan-African in the same month — all three are real, and all three count separately.
So the totals across flags add up to more than the number of people playing. Filter by group type to see countries, ancestries, broad categories or heritage banners on their own.
ON THE FLAGS
State flags are simplified. Most US state flags carry a detailed seal, which cannot be reproduced in a dot field. Field colours, layouts and emblem shapes follow the real flag; seals are rendered as coloured shapes, not artwork.
Groups tied to a country use that country's flag. Peoples without a state — Pan-African, Indigenous, Roma, Kurdish and others — use their recognised heritage banner. Broad census categories use a designed banner, not an official flag.