brazil
Brazil today is formed basically out of what were the Portuguese colonies in South America. Brazil shared Portugal's flag from the early 1500s until 1815. It carried the flag of Spain. In 1815, the fled Portuguese monarch formed the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves. The flag was changed to a gold sphere with their coat of arms on a white field, like this. In 1822, the flag was redesigned to have a yellow rhombus on a green field when Brazil declared independence. After a coup in 1889, the coat of arms was replaced with a blue sphere featuring the southern night sky's major stars. Their motto, "Ordem, e Progresso", Order and Progress, run across the sphere. The sphere originally had 20 stars, one for each state, and other than additional stars being added to represent new states, little has changed.