Fact
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Country
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Three rivers after which other countries are named rise in its Fouta Djallon highlands
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Guinea
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Formerly an exclave of a country about a thousand miles distant, it became independent after a bloody civil war in 1971
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Bangladesh
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Colloquially referred to by its inhabitants as "The Hexagon"
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France
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Adopted bitcoin as legal tender a month before its value started to decline precipitously
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El Salvador
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Seceded from a larger country in 1991, without any of the bloodshed which affected the other seceding nations at the same time
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North Macedonia
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The second-largest Portuguese-speaking country by both population and area
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Angola
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Winners of the very first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956
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Switzerland
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The Bissagos archipelago supports a highly diverse ecosystem and was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1996
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Guinea-Bissau
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The island of Mustique, which cultivates an air of exclusivity and wealth, is part of this country
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Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
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The official national sport is Pato, a horseback sport combining elements of polo and basketball
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Argentina
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Has a Levenshtein distance of 1 to a neighbouring country to the west
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Iran
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The Arab Spring began in this country in late 2010
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Tunisia
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The chemical elements magnesium and manganese are both named after an ancient region of this country
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Greece
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Named after two islands, themselves named after a religious concept and a cash crop
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Trinidad and Tobago
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The annual Exit Festival, hosted in the northern part of this country, is one of Europe's largest
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Serbia
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Its name comes from the Greek for "Red Sea"
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Eritrea
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Clocks at railway stations throughout this country show the time in the capital city, up to eight time zones away
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Russia
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Produces 25 million tonnes of mango annually, almost half the global total
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India
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Due to the seafaring skills of its inhabitants, the archipelago to which this nation belongs was known historically as the Navigator Islands
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Samoa
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The three-peaked Mount Triglav is considered an emblem of this country
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Slovenia
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Danish pastries were invented by bakers from this country
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Austria
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Over 800 known languages are spoken by its inhabitants.
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Papua New Guinea
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The government of this nation targets Gross Domestic Happiness over any purely economic metrics
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Bhutan
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Its two Nobel Prize winners, Derek Walcott and W. Arthur Lewis, give it the world's highest rate of Nobel winners per capita
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Saint Lucia
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In 2012, the capital city was rocked by a huge explosion caused when an arms depot caught fire
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Republic of the Congo
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Its 16-mile coastline makes it the most nearly landlocked nation in Asia
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Jordan
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The last country in Europe not to have universal suffrage, with women not being allowed to vote until 1984
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Liechtenstein
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The only country whose name includes a colour
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Cape Verde
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Even the vaguest criticism of this country's royal family is savagely punished, sometimes with jail sentences of decades
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Thailand
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Near-constant thunderstorms over the mouth of this country's Catatumbo River produce about 5,000 lightning strikes a day
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Venezuela
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This island nation is colloquially referred to as "Bim" by its inhabitants
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Barbados
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"Dundee United" is a slang term for an idiot in this country
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Nigeria
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The least densely populated country in the world
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Mongolia
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Medjool dates, known as the "fruit of kings", originated in this country
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Morocco
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Its capital lies on the island of Guadalcanal, which is named after a village in Spain and means "valley of stalls" in Arabic
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Solomon Islands
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A hurricane devasted its former capital in 1961, leading to the construction ten years later of a new inland capital
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Belize
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Has the most official languages of any country with 37
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Bolivia
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Lies entirely in the Southern Hemisphere, but its northernmost point is only about 2 kilometres south of the equator
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Peru
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Its former province of Kafiristan was the setting for Rudyard Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King"
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Afghanistan
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The only African country named after a saint
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Sao Tome and Principe
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The smallest country in the western hemisphere by both area and population
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Saint Kitts and Nevis
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The only wild hippos outside Africa are found here
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Colombia
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Named after an animal product which was once an import export from the region
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Ivory Coast
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Dropped from largest to third-largest country in Africa in 2011
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Sudan
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Jogging was outlawed in 2014 because the paranoid president feared that people were having subversive discussions while running
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Burundi
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Remote and uninhabited Hans Island is divided between this country and Denmark
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Canada
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Its first-level subdivisions are called "Castles"
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San Marino
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Scores 34 points in Scrabble scoring, the highest of any single-word country
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Mozambique
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Its capital is the origin of the name of a large island about 1000 miles to the south
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Somalia
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Its national anthem, the Marcha Real, has no lyrics
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Spain
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Formerly divided into a Communist south and an Arab nationalist North, the country reunited in 1990
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Yemen
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The only country in the world with no official capital city
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Nauru
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Since 1941, this country has used gifts or loans of members of an iconic bear species to bolster diplomatic relations with other countries
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China
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The only Arabic-speaking country in the Southern Hemisphere
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Comoros
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Its capital was named Titograd from 1946 until 1992
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Montenegro
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The president from 2018 to 2024 was a former footballer who is the country's all time top goalscorer
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Liberia
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An unexplained seismic disturbance occurred in 1993 on land owned by a Japanese cult in this country's vast and remote west
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Australia
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There are not enough Cs in a set of English Scrabble letters to spell its name, although it would fit on the board
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Czech Republic
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Perhaps surprisingly, only one person from this country has ever started on pole position in a Formula One Grand Prix
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Poland
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Many nations have fought for their independence; this country's came involuntarily when it was expelled from a confederation in 1965
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Singapore
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Known to its own inhabitants as Hayastan
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Armenia
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Switzerland's army is composed of Swiss citizens, and this country's is as well
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Vatican City
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The so-called Singing Revolution, which led to the independence of three nations, began in this country in 1988
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Estonia
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Its national anthem mentions Poland, and the national anthem of Poland mentions this country
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Italy
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Despite football being the most popular sport in this country, its national football team has not played since 1965
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United Kingdom
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The Shkumbin River divides this country into two regions which speak different dialects of its language
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Albania
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A religion which worshipped the Emperor of Ethiopia emerged in this nation in the 1930s
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Jamaica
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Forced a Ryanair plane to land in its territory in 2021 to abduct a dissident who was flying from Greece to Lithuania
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Belarus
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Was uninhabited until the 1750s, and is named after the finance minister of France at the time of its settlement
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Seychelles
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In 2022, a massive volcanic eruption in this country generated the loudest sound ever recorded.
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Tonga
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Ironically, gambling or even entering a casino is illegal for its citizens
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Monaco
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This country, its capital, and the island it is on, all have different names but all start with the same letter
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Brunei
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The United Fruit Company was once the largest private landowner in this country, giving rise to the coining of the term "banana republic"
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Guatemala
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The largest living species of tortoise comes from this country
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Ecuador
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A province, a university, a newspaper and a baseball team in this country are named Granma, after a yacht which was named for its owner's grandmother
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Cuba
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Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah and Umm Al Quwain are among the lesser known of the seven constituent parts of this country
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United Arab Emirates
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Named after a British naval officer who, after sailing to Australia with the First Fleet, travelled to China charting unknown lands en route
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Marshall Islands
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Site of the first skyscraper to exceed 500m in height
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Taiwan
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A variant of Hindi is an official language in this country, a legacy of Indian labourers brought to the country when it was a colony of the British Empire
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Fiji
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Site of the largest volcanic eruption of the last 100 years
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Philippines
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The film "The Last King of Scotland" is loosely based on the chaotic dictatorship this country experienced in the 1970s
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Uganda
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The cities of León and Granada are historically fierce rivals, with the country's capital chosen for its compromise location between the two
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Nicaragua
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The majority of its territory lies on a large island, but the majority of its population lives in the mainland part of the country
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Malaysia
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By 2531, everyone in this country will have the surname "Sato", because by law, married couples must have the same surname
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Japan
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Its flag includes a cross which represents the George Cross awarded to the nation during WWII
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Malta
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Its capital sits at the confluence of the Alzette and Petrusse rivers
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Luxembourg
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From space, the east and west parts of its capital look distinctly different due to their different street lighting technologies
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Germany
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The site of the prototypical "Lessepsian migration", a phenomenon in which two previously entirely separate ecosystems are joined artificially
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Egypt
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This nation is the world's second largest exporter of nutmeg and features a nutmeg fruit on its flag
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Grenada
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Olympic legend Eric the Eel is from here
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Equatorial Guinea
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With the lowest average elevation of any country, rising sea levels are of grave concern here
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Maldives
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Two variants of its name are in use; which one you use is seen as a politicised choice
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Myanmar
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Covers the eastern half of the only island in the world on which two national capitals can be found
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Dominican Republic
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The first Warsaw Pact nation to open its border to the west in 1989
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Hungary
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The smallest of the eight countries which straddle the Prime Meridian
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Togo
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Palau and the Marshall Islands voted against membership of this federation in referendums when it was created in 1978
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Federated States of Micronesia
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The Darvaza gas crater has been burning since the 1980s in the middle of this country's Karakum Desert
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Turkmenistan
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Has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites of any country in the Americas
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Mexico
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