By Ariel Bogle Australia From Mashable

New Zealand wants a new flag, and it’s going to let the people decide.

After receiving 10,292 flag design submissions from the interested public, many of which amused and horrified the world, the 12-person flag panel has whittled the country’s options down to four.

The final contenders contain various symbols important to New Zealand such as the fern frond, the Southern Cross constellation and the koru, a design that represents new life, growth and strength in Māori visual language.

New Zealanders will be able to vote on the flag via a postal referendum later this year. Of course, there’s the possibility that New Zealanders will stick with what they know and vote to retain their current flag.

Here are the final four contenders.

Option 1: Silver Fern (Black & White) by Alofi Kanter.
Flag IMAGE: WWW.GOVT.NZ

Option 2: Silver Fern (Red, White and Blue) by Kyle Lockwood.
Flag IMAGE: WWW.GOVT.NZ

Option 3: Koru by Andrew Fyfe.
Flag IMAGE: WWW.GOVT.NZ

Option 4: Silver Fern (Black, White and Blue) by Kyle Lockwood.
Flag IMAGE: WWW.GOVT.NZ
The final shortlist got a mixed reaction from New Zealanders, to say the least.

For more on this story go to: http://mashable.com/2015/08/31/new-zealand-flag-shortlist/?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher