Introduction

Regional indicator emoji (RIE) are special letter emoji that combine to render a flag when placed next to each other in certain pairs. For instance, if you place 🇳 and 🇴 together on a webpage, you get 🇳🇴: The flag of Norway. I’m doing that now in this HTML file - check the source! There are a large number of these letter pairs: 249 official two-letter country codes and 9 “exceptional” codes (UN or 🇺🇳 renders the flag of the United Nations, for example)¹. Here are the 258 two-letter country codes that will render a flag:

listofCountryCodes

##   [1] "AD" "AE" "AF" "AG" "AI" "AL" "AM" "AO" "AQ" "AR" "AS" "AT" "AU" "AW" "AX"
##  [16] "AZ" "BA" "BB" "BD" "BE" "BF" "BG" "BH" "BI" "BJ" "BL" "BM" "BN" "BO" "BQ"
##  [31] "BR" "BS" "BT" "BV" "BW" "BY" "BZ" "CA" "CC" "CD" "CF" "CG" "CH" "CI" "CK"
##  [46] "CL" "CM" "CN" "CO" "CR" "CU" "CV" "CW" "CX" "CY" "CZ" "DE" "DJ" "DK" "DM"
##  [61] "DO" "DZ" "EC" "EE" "EG" "EH" "ER" "ES" "ET" "FI" "FJ" "FK" "FM" "FO" "FR"
##  [76] "GA" "GB" "GD" "GE" "GF" "GG" "GH" "GI" "GL" "GM" "GN" "GP" "GQ" "GR" "GS"
##  [91] "GT" "GU" "GW" "GY" "HK" "HM" "HN" "HR" "HT" "HU" "ID" "IE" "IL" "IM" "IN"
## [106] "IO" "IQ" "IR" "IS" "IT" "JE" "JM" "JO" "JP" "KE" "KG" "KH" "KI" "KM" "KN"
## [121] "KP" "KR" "KW" "KY" "KZ" "LA" "LB" "LC" "LI" "LK" "LR" "LS" "LT" "LU" "LV"
## [136] "LY" "MA" "MC" "MD" "ME" "MF" "MG" "MH" "MK" "ML" "MM" "MN" "MO" "MP" "MQ"
## [151] "MR" "MS" "MT" "MU" "MV" "MW" "MX" "MY" "MZ" "NA" "NC" "NE" "NF" "NG" "NI"
## [166] "NL" "NO" "NP" "NR" "NU" "NZ" "OM" "PA" "PE" "PF" "PG" "PH" "PK" "PL" "PM"
## [181] "PN" "PR" "PS" "PT" "PW" "PY" "QA" "RE" "RO" "RS" "RU" "RW" "SA" "SB" "SC"
## [196] "SD" "SE" "SG" "SH" "SI" "SJ" "SK" "SL" "SM" "SN" "SO" "SR" "SS" "ST" "SV"
## [211] "SX" "SY" "SZ" "TC" "TD" "TF" "TG" "TH" "TJ" "TK" "TL" "TM" "TN" "TO" "TR"
## [226] "TT" "TV" "TW" "TZ" "UA" "UG" "UM" "US" "UY" "UZ" "VA" "VC" "VE" "VG" "VI"
## [241] "VN" "VU" "WF" "WS" "YE" "YT" "ZA" "ZM" "ZW" "AC" "CP" "DG" "TA" "EA" "IC"
## [256] "XK" "EU" "UN"

Since you can get individual regional indicator letters as separate emoji, the question is: What is the longest English word you can spell with them without having a pair of them turn into some sort of flag?

Answer

The best answer I could find is 🇪🇶🇺🇮 🇵🇴 🇱🇱🇪🇳🇹 (equipollent), at 11 letters. If you want a word that’s in more common use, 🇹🇪🇱🇪🇵🇴🇷🇹🇪🇩 (teleported) and 🇰🇴🇴🇰🇦🇧🇺🇷🇷🇦 (kookaburra) are two excellent candidates at 10 letters.

Method

There were two parts to reaching this answer.

First, I defined a function which checked every letter pair in a given input word and returned TRUE if none of the word’s letter pairs were in the list of country codes.

checkInputWord = function(wordEnter){
  truthCounter <- 0
  word <- toupper(wordEnter)
  for(i in (1:(nchar(word) - 1)))(
    if(str_sub(word, i, i + 1) %in% listofCountryCodes) {
      truthCounter <- truthCounter + 1
    }
  )

  return(dplyr::if_else(truthCounter > 0, FALSE, TRUE, missing = FALSE))
}

checkInputWord("PUP") #Returns true

## [1] TRUE

checkInputWord("PUPPY") #Returns false for "PY" - Portugal

## [1] FALSE

Second, I got a list of about 370,000 “English” words² and ran them all through this function. Many of the words are not English but are recognizable loanwords. Some are dubious, like the other 11-letter candidate GOSPODIPODA which does not seem to be a real word in use. But there’s enough I recognize to satisfy me.

words_alpha <- readLines("words_alpha.txt") #lots of words! from https://github.com/dwyl/english-words?tab=readme-ov-file

wordVector <- c()

for(i in 1:length(words_alpha))(
  if(checkInputWord(words_alpha[i]))(
    wordVector <- c(wordVector, words_alpha[i])
  )
)

#Once that's done - extract maximum word

wordVector[nchar(wordVector)==max(nchar(wordVector))]

## [1] "equipollent" "gospodipoda"

#And then here's the 10 letter candidates. 

wordVector[nchar(wordVector)==max(nchar(wordVector)) - 1]

##  [1] "anteflexed" "antelopian" "antifelony" "buddhahood" "equipotent"
##  [6] "hemizygote" "hypopoddia" "kookaburra" "kotukutuku" "oxybutyria"
## [11] "rhizopodan" "rhizopogon" "spoondrift" "sulfhydryl" "sulfurized"
## [16] "teleported" "workfellow"

#Here's the 9 letter candidates for good measure. 

wordVector[nchar(wordVector)==max(nchar(wordVector)) - 2]

##  [1] "anhydrize" "antifelon" "antiworld" "buhlworks" "bullhorns" "bullpouts"
##  [7] "cellepora" "dandriffy" "dandriffs" "diandrian" "dryopians" "eponymize"
## [13] "equivoque" "excelente" "excellent" "felonwood" "felonwort" "floodways"
## [19] "floodwood" "fullwords" "furfurans" "gonyocele" "gourdworm" "handholds"
## [25] "handiwork" "handworks" "hemipodan" "hemipodii" "hexahedra" "hexandria"
## [31] "hexapodan" "hypohemia" "hypopodia" "hypoxemia" "hypoxylon" "holohedry"
## [37] "hondurans" "hondurian" "hornworts" "hotelhood" "ivorywood" "kurmburra"
## [43] "loanwords" "oddfellow" "offendant" "okupukupu" "outpolled" "outpulled"
## [49] "outquoted" "polemized" "potentize" "potpourri" "purported" "purpurize"
## [55] "quixotize" "rantepole" "rantipole" "rhizopoda" "rhizopods" "spoolwood"
## [61] "spoonsful" "spoonways" "spoonwood" "spoonwort" "subpotent" "sudburian"
## [67] "sulfurize" "supported" "suppurant" "surquedry" "teleozoon" "teleports"
## [73] "turbulent" "wayfellow" "woodworks" "worrywort" "zelotypia" "zulhijjah"

[1] UTS #51: Unicode Emoji Annex B: Valid Emoji Flag Sequences. Unicode Consortium web. Retrieved August 9, 2025, from https://unicode.org/reports/tr51/#Flags

[2] This list can be found at https://github.com/dwyl/english-words?tab=readme-ov-file.

What’s the Longest English Word That Can Be Spelt With Regional Indicator Emoji Without Introducing a Flag?

Osi Fisher

Introduction

Answer

Method