While the internet is often seen as a global resource, not all websites are available to users worldwide. Due to cultural, political, or regulatory reasons, several well-known U.S. websites are restricted or banned in certain countries, blocking millions from accessing content that many Americans take for granted. From social media platforms to major news outlets, these websites have been shut out in regions where governments are wary of their influence or content.

This list delves into ten popular U.S. websites that have faced bans or heavy restrictions around the world.

Related: 10 Pop Songs Banned by Governments

10 Facebook

Facebook, one of the world’s largest social media platforms, has been banned in several countries, most notably China and Iran, and is partially restricted in North Korea. In China, Facebook was blocked in 2009 following the Urumqi riots, with the government claiming that the platform was being used to organize anti-government activities and spread unrest. The Chinese government maintains a high degree of control over its citizens’ access to information, fearing that platforms like Facebook could be used to criticize the government or organize protests.

Instead of Facebook, Chinese users have access to local alternatives like WeChat and Weibo, both of which are monitored and regulated by Chinese authorities. WeChat serves as an all-encompassing app for communication, payments, and social networking, allowing the government tighter control over digital activities. For the Chinese government, restricting Facebook and encouraging the use of homegrown apps helps maintain social stability and allows for greater oversight of citizens’ online interactions.^[1]

9 YouTube

YouTube, the go-to platform for video content, has faced bans and heavy restrictions in countries such as China, North Korea, and, at times, Pakistan. Pakistan initially banned YouTube in 2012 after the release of the controversial video Innocence of Muslims, which was deemed offensive to Islam and led to violent protests across the country. Pakistan eventually lifted the ban in 2016 after Google assured the government it would remove certain offensive content. In China, YouTube is banned entirely as part of the government’s broader censorship efforts, which aim to control politically sensitive information. Recently, even Russia has begun efforts to ban YouTube.

In countries where YouTube is restricted, local alternatives often take its place. For example, in Pakistan, the government actively monitors video content, and apps like Dailymotion or Vimeo serve as popular substitutes. In China, domestic platforms like Youku and Bilibili provide similar content, albeit with heavy censorship. These local platforms allow governments to filter and regulate video content more effectively, which is essential in regions where online media is tightly controlled to maintain government narratives.^[2]

8 Twitter/X

Twitter… uh, X, known for its fast-paced, open platform, is banned or heavily restricted in several countries, including China, North Korea, and, until recently, Nigeria. In China, Twitter has been banned since 2009, with the government citing the platform’s potential to incite social unrest. China’s authorities are wary of Twitter’s ability to rapidly spread information and its appeal for organizing protests. North Korea, on the other hand, blocks Twitter entirely as part of its policy of isolating citizens from outside influences. Brazil has also recently banned X in a feud with Elon Musk over political content on the platform.

During Nigeria’s ban on Twitter in 2021, the government cited the platform’s alleged interference in Nigerian domestic issues after Twitter removed a controversial tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari. Nigeria eventually lifted the ban after Twitter agreed to certain conditions. In China, Sina Weibo functions as the country’s answer to Twitter, but with stringent monitoring and censorship. This reliance on domestic alternatives allows governments to offer a similar service while ensuring that posts align with national interests and narratives.^[3]

7 Google Search

Google Search is one of the most widely used search engines globally, but it has been banned in China since 2010. The Chinese government initially allowed Google to operate in a heavily censored form, but Google decided to withdraw after refusing to comply with demands to censor search results further. This move followed a series of cyber-attacks allegedly targeting human rights activists’ Gmail accounts, which led to increased tensions between Google and the Chinese government. China’s decision to ban Google Search is part of its strategy to control the flow of information within the country.

Since then, Baidu has become China’s most popular search engine, offering a similar service but within the government’s strict regulatory framework. Baidu censors’ results were related to sensitive topics, such as the Tiananmen Square protests and the Tibetan and Taiwan independence movements. The ban on Google Search underscores China’s commitment to keeping information flows in check and promoting domestic platforms that are more compliant with government interests, showing how censorship shapes even the most basic internet functions. ^[4]

6 Wikipedia

Wikipedia, the world’s largest open-source encyclopedia, has been banned or restricted in countries like Turkey (until recently) and China. Turkey banned Wikipedia in 2017, accusing it of hosting articles suggesting that Turkey supported terrorist groups, an accusation that the government vehemently denied. This ban lasted nearly three years until Turkey’s highest court ruled that it violated freedom of expression. In China, Wikipedia remains banned due to its articles on politically sensitive topics, including human rights abuses, Tibet, and the history of the Communist Party.

The decentralized nature of Wikipedia, where contributors from around the world can edit and publish information, makes it difficult for governments to control content. In China, people turn to Baidu Baike, a government-approved online encyclopedia that offers similar information but with state oversight. This censorship approach allows governments to limit access to unregulated information, controlling narratives and preventing citizens from accessing perspectives that might challenge official state positions.^[5]

5 Reddit

Reddit, often called “the front page of the internet,” is banned in China and has faced temporary restrictions in countries like Indonesia. China blocks Reddit due to its decentralized, user-driven content, which can easily delve into controversial topics that challenge government narratives [LINK 6]. Indonesia also briefly restricted Reddit due to its allowance of explicit content and discussions that contradict local cultural norms, but later lifted the ban with certain content filtering requirements in place.

In China, popular forums like Baidu Tieba offer similar functions but are tightly monitored by government censors. These forums avoid politically sensitive or culturally taboo topics, maintaining an environment consistent with the government’s internet regulations. Reddit’s ban reflects how governments prioritize control over online discourse and aim to restrict platforms that offer unrestricted freedom of expression.^[6]

4 The New York Times

The New York Times, a globally respected newspaper, is banned in China, where authorities object to its investigative reporting on sensitive topics, such as Chinese leadership, political corruption, and human rights issues. The ban began in 2012 after the Times published an exposé detailing the wealth of former Premier Wen Jiabao’s family, a story that embarrassed the Chinese government and prompted swift retaliation. Since then, the Times has faced ongoing restrictions as Chinese authorities aim to limit access to foreign journalism that may criticize or scrutinize government actions.

Chinese readers seeking global news often turn to government-approved publications like the Xinhua News Agency or Global Times, which provide news through a state-approved lens. The Chinese government’s crackdown on foreign media outlets highlights its desire to shape public perception and ensure that journalism aligns with national interests. The restriction on the New York Times demonstrates the challenges that independent news organizations face in countries with strict media control.^[7]

3 Dropbox

Dropbox, a popular cloud storage service, has been banned in China since 2014 due to concerns over data privacy and government control. Chinese authorities worry that Dropbox’s encryption makes it impossible to monitor, potentially allowing citizens to store or share information the government deems inappropriate or dangerous. Unlike other tech companies, Dropbox has not created a censored version for the Chinese market, choosing instead to maintain its commitment to user privacy.

China’s answer to Dropbox is Baidu Cloud, which offers similar services but complies with local data regulations that allow government access to stored data when needed. The Dropbox ban illustrates the clash between international tech companies’ data protection policies and governments’ demand for surveillance, especially in countries where control over online content is strict.^[8]

2 PayPal

PayPal, the global online payment system, was not outright banned but faced suspension in Turkey in 2016 after failing to comply with local data storage laws. Turkish regulators required all payment processing companies to store customer data locally, a rule that PayPal was unable to meet with its existing infrastructure. As a result, PayPal ceased its operations in Turkey, leaving Turkish users without one of the most popular digital payment platforms in the world.

Since then, local alternatives like Iyzico and Papara have filled the gap left by PayPal’s exit. Turkey’s insistence on data localization reflects a broader trend among countries looking to assert control over digital financial transactions and customer data. PayPal’s struggle in Turkey underscores the challenge for international companies trying to comply with varying regulatory standards while maintaining operational efficiency.^[9]

1 WhatsApp

WhatsApp, the popular messaging app known for its end-to-end encryption, has been banned or heavily restricted in countries like China, North Korea, and parts of the Middle East. China, in particular, has restricted WhatsApp since 2017, claiming the app’s encryption poses a national security threat by preventing the government from monitoring messages. End-to-end encryption is also frowned upon in countries where government surveillance is prioritized.

In China, WeChat, a government-approved messaging app, serves as the primary alternative. WeChat offers messaging, social media, and payment services, all of which the government can monitor more easily. The WhatsApp ban is a clear example of how encryption technologies can clash with national security policies, especially in countries where the government seeks full control over communication channels.^[10]

For the purposes of this list, “crisis” shall refer to negative circumstances that could alter a nation’s economy. Most of the time, such a description would be fit by large-scale disasters like wars, epidemics, and famine. Sometimes, however, portents of doom might barely seem newsworthy.

Seemingly innocuous things like a low birth rate, a shortage of vultures, or just having too many cattle around are, for some countries, more dire than they appear. While the following situations seem unspectacular, they could lead to worse disasters.

10 South Korea’s Birth Crisis

South Korea’s birth crisis is so bad that the government is paying couples to have children. The nation’s fertility rate hit a record low in 2018. At the current rate, the population is expected to grow in the negative in just ten years. This means there will be more deaths than births. If the trend is allowed to continue, it is estimated that there will be nobody left in the country by 2750.

In just 13 years, the South Korean government has spent over $121 billion to encourage parents to have more children. These days, most parents are eligible to receive up to $270 a month from the government.

Starting in late 2019, parents with children below the age of eight will be allowed to work one hour less per day. The government is also building more kindergartens and day cares. Fathers will also given be a paid paternity leave of ten days—seven days more than the currently approved three days.^[1]

9 India’s Stray Cow Crisis

The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh is currently experiencing a severe stray cow crisis. Cows are not eaten in India because they are considered sacred creatures. Some people do eat cows, but the state government and cow protection groups have been clamping down on them.

This has left farmers with fewer incentives to keep male calves and cows that no longer produce milk. Most farmers abandon these unproductive cattle on the streets because having them around costs money. In 2012, there were 1,009,436 stray cattle in the state of Uttar Pradesh. This year’s Live Stock Census is expected to show a much higher number.

The stray cattle have become a nuisance because they raid farmlands and eat crops. Some cows end up in cow shelters, which have quickly become overcrowded and underfunded. These days, farmers and community members lock the stray cattle in government buildings like schools and hospitals.^[2]

8 Venezuela’s Passport Crisis

Venezuela has been in the news for all the wrong reasons over the past few years. The oil-rich Latin American nation has suffered serious hyperinflation that has almost brought its economy to a standstill. And with two people claiming to be president, its many problems won’t be ending anytime soon.

Over 2.3 million people have fled Venezuela for neighboring Latin American nations since 2014. However, many more are still stuck because they do not have passports. The passport crisis is so bad that fellow Latin American nations are allowing Venezuelans in with expired passports. But Venezuelans without passports remain stuck in the nation.

Getting a passport or any government-issued document was an uphill task before the crisis. Now it’s worse. Workers at the passport office are known to deliberately delay passports unless passport-seekers pay bribes of $1,000 to $5,000. Today’s passport-seekers don’t have that kind of money. And the government itself isn’t too keen on allowing its citizens to leave.^[3]

7 Venezuela’s Health Care Crisis

Venezuela is also experiencing a severe health care crisis. At least 22,000 doctors have fled the country since the crisis began, causing a nationwide shortage of doctors. Several hospitals have either closed or operate irregularly. Those that remain open do not have enough supplies.

These days, patients are required to bring their own drugs, syringes, gloves, and even soap. This has seen Venezuelan hospitals go from places where people are cured to places where they get killed. It is normal for patients to contract deadly diseases while admitted for other ailments.

This is worsened by a shortage of drugs, which, coupled with severely malnourished patients, is the perfect recipe for disaster. Hospitals have also seen an increase in burn victims. Most are toddlers who got burned when they strayed into wood fires and kerosene lamps that have taken the place of heaters and light bulbs.^[4]

6 China’s Food Crisis

China has been experiencing a food crisis for a few years now, and the trade war with the US made it worse. Last year, the Chinese government introduced several tariffs to much-needed food imports like soybeans, sorghum, and corn in response to Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods.

Interestingly, the Chinese government-owned Sinograin, which keeps a stockpile of grain for the government, had to pay the tariffs. President Xi Jinping later toured areas of Northeast China, where most of China’s farms are based, and said that China should become more self-sufficient in food production.

Food production has always been a problem for China. China’s arable farmland amounts to less than a tenth of the world’s farmland, even though it has one fifth of the world’s population. On top of that, lots of its farmland is either occupied by industries or contaminated with heavy metals released by those industries.^[5]

The food crisis began decades ago, when an improved standard of living caused Chinese citizens to shift from carbohydrate- to protein-rich diets, and there isn’t enough farmland to grow vegetables and rear livestock. For now, China has been able to manage by importing food and leasing or buying farmland in Africa, Australia, and the Americas.

However, the trade war with the US has shown that importation could be unreliable. Besides, most countries harboring Chinese farms are expecting a population boom in a few decades and will be needing the farmland to feed their own citizens.

5 The US Recyclable Plastic Crisis

Bad news for environmental activists: the US government cannot recycle most of its recyclable plastics. A few years ago, a huge chunk of recyclable items used in the US ended up in China. This changed in January 2018, when China banned recyclable plastics from the US.

The US turned to Canada, Turkey, Malaysia, and Thailand to recycle its plastics. In the first half of 2017, the US exported 4,000 tons of recyclable plastics to Thailand. Within six months of China’s ban, the US had exported 91,505 tons of plastic to Thailand. That’s a 1,985-percent increase.

But these countries do not want US plastics. Malaysia introduced a tax and limited the types of plastics that are acceptable. Thailand has promised to ban US plastics within two years. In response, several US states have either abandoned recycling some types of plastics or dumped recycling altogether.^[6]

4 China’s Birth Crisis

A few decades ago, China introduced a one-child policy to control its booming population. The policy was strictly enforced, with the government even conducting forced abortions and sterilization on people who flouted the policy.

In 2015, the government replaced the one-child policy with the two-child policy when it realized that the nation was experiencing a decline in population growth, just like South Korea. But it seems like most Chinese couples prefer having just one child or none at all.

The Chinese government wants parents to have more than one kid so badly that it is encouraging couples to have more children “for the country.” A government-run newspaper also informed couples that, “Having children is a family matter but also a national matter.”

The government is considering paying couples to have a second child. It is also considering tax breaks or even dumping its two-child policy to allow couples have as many children as they want.^[7]

3 India’s Vulture Crisis

India had lots of vultures in the past. Its vulture population was so high that nobody bothered to count, though an estimate put it at 40 million in the early 1990s. This changed between 1992 and 2007, during which the vulture population fell by 97 to 99.9 percent. India has only around 20,000 vultures today.

Interestingly, nobody noticed the decline in vulture population until researchers and villagers suddenly noticed that they were not seeing enough vultures. Some villagers even thought the US had stolen their vultures.

Remember we mentioned that Indians generally don’t eat cattle? This is where the vultures come in. Indian farmers fed their dead cattle to vultures. Unfortunately, diclofenac, a popular painkiller used for cattle, is lethal to vultures. It causes renal failure and death in vultures that eat the carcasses of dead cattle.

Now, there aren’t enough vultures to eat the carcasses, leaving lots of dead and decomposing cattle scattered across India. This has left the country on the brink of a disease epidemic. Rats and dogs have replaced the vultures, but they are not as effective. Besides, dogs could pass bacteria in the carcasses to humans.

India has banned diclofenac and introduced breeding programs to repopulate the wild with vultures. However, it will take time before it gets the intended results. The government could also suffer a setback because some cattle owners still use diclofenac illegally.^[8]

2 South Korea’s Suicide Crisis

South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. 13,500 South Koreans committed suicide in 2015. That’s an average of 37 in a day. Most who choose to end their own lives are senior citizens, who often live in poverty and do not want to become a burden to their living relatives. Many aged South Koreans are so poor that they depend on free meals to survive.

In response to high suicide rates, the government has criminalized suicide pacts—agreements between two or more people who promise to engage in joint suicide.^[9] In 2011, the government also reduced suicide rates by 15 percent when it banned paraquat, a pesticide often used to commit suicide.

1 Germany’s Renewable Energy Crisis

Germany is the model nation for renewable energy. On one Sunday in 2017, it generated so much power from its renewable sources that the government paid users to use the excess power. This is referred to as “negative prices” and has also happened in Belgium, Britain, France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

In such instances, the government pays citizens and factories to switch on equipment and machines they are not using. Imagine the US government paying you to switch on your washing machine for no reason. To be clear, the government does not give consumers money. Rather, the energy companies subtract it from their electricity bills.

Negative prices happen because green energy is unpredictable and uncontrollable. Coal and nuclear plant output can be increased or decreased to meet demands. Solar panels and wind turbines cannot. They generate electricity depending on the weather conditions.

Green energy companies keep themselves abreast of the weather with forecasts. But for anybody who has ended up in the rain when the weatherman said it would be sunny, we know weather forecasts are not always reliable.

The attempt to shift to green energy has created a crisis Germans call “energy poverty.” Energy poverty happens when people find it difficult to pay for electricity, or they spend so much on electricity that they do not have enough money to survive. This happens because Germans pay an average annual tax of $171 and high electricity prices to keep the green energy companies in business.

Besides plunging many into energy poverty, the unreliable green energy is counterproductive for Germany. While the government pays citizens to waste excess electricity, it always leaves it coal and nuclear plants working in case the green sources do not produce enough electricity. This has increased Germany’s carbon emissions and even caused the government to build more coal plants.^[10]

Explorers named the countries they discovered using a little bit of legend and a dash of superstition. Many of us know the fascinating tale of how Greenland and Iceland got their names. The viking Floki Vildegarson named Iceland for its icebergs after suffering misfortune, while Erik the Red named Greenland for its lush valleys to encourage his countrymen to settle there, and yet each country’s climate now seems to contradict its deceptive name. Here are 10 other tales behind the naming of countries.

10ChinaAll Under Heaven

The most populous nation in the world has had numerous names. The word “China” itself was derived from the Qin Dynasty (pronounced “chin”), established by Qin Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor. Likewise, another name, “Cathay,” came from the famous traveler Marco Polo, who referred to northern China by such a name (and southern China as “Mangi”). Readers may know of the airline Cathay Pacific, and its Marco Polo Club, exclusive to “modern-day Marco Polos”—frequent flyers.

Another name for China is “Zhongguo,” from the words Zhong (“center”) and Guo (“country”). Literally it could be interpreted as “the central country,” but a more apt translation would be “The Middle Kingdom.”

For centuries, the people of China believed the land was at the very core of creation under heaven. The further you travel away from this center, the more barbarous and inhospitable the lands become. In a sense, they were correct. Outside their borders and their famed Great Wall lay the various steppe tribes—the Xionnu and Shan Yue raiders and the countless hordes of the Mongols and Oirats. “Zhongguo” was also used as the shortened version of “The People’s Republic of China.”

9ArmeniaThe Family Tree

Armenia, the small landlocked nation bordered by Turkey, Iran, and Georgia, has had a long-storied history with monotheistic religions. It is widely considered the first nation to have adopted Christianity as the official state religion in the year 301.

Armenia, which is derived from the Old Persian language as “Armina,” has another name for itself: “Hayk,” after a descendant of Noah said to have settled in those lands near Mount Ararat. An even more complete interpretation would cite the country as “The Land of Noah’s Great-Great-Grandson, Hayk.” In legend, Hayk left for a time to assist in building the Tower of Babel. Upon his return, his lands were encroached upon by a Babylonian king whom he killed in battle.

Later on, the country’s name was changed to Hayastan (the Persian suffix “‑stan” means “land”).

Another legend tells of Armenia being derived from “Aram” (“a great-great-grandson of Hayk’s great-great-grandson”) who is considered by some locals the ancestor of all Armenians.

8Nauru A Pleasant Welcome, A Summer Destination

On November 8, 1798, a British captain by the name of John Fearn, sailing to China via New Zealand, landed on a remote island in the Pacific. The natives made quite an impression on him; Fearn wrote that “their behavior was very courteous, and they strongly invited us to anchor on their island.” So it was that the captain named this place as “Pleasant Island.”

However, Nauru, the smallest republic in the entire world, also had an entirely different name derived from the local word Anaoero. In the native Nauruan dialect, quite significantly different from Oceanic languages, the term means an action—“I go to the beach.”

It seems justified—Nauru was indeed a travel destination known for beautiful beaches. However, as time went on, the economy took a downward plunge. The country even entered into an agreement with Australia to build a detention center for offshore processing of asylum seekers.

7ArgentinaA Mountainous Wealth Of Legends

The Spaniard Juan Diaz de Solis allegedly murdered his wife in Portugal. To escape the authorities, he fled back to his home country and took part in numerous voyages during the golden era of Spanish exploration. On October 8, 1515, Diaz de Solis sailed in command of three ships, hoping to find a westward passage to the Pacific. De Solis found an estuary and named it “Mar Dulce,” the “fresh sea,” then sailed further inland. There, the explorer met with a cruel end close to present-day Buenos Aires. Cannibals hacked him and his entourage then ate them as the rest of the ships’ crews watched in utter shock.

His brother-in-law, Francisco de Torres, took command of the expedition, which again met with unbelievably bad luck when he was shipwrecked. The natives in this new land were quite friendly—among the items they offered were glistening ornaments made with fine silver.

Observations became legends. Another explorer, Sebastian Cabot, years later found survivors who told him of the natives’ wealth and a mountain of silver (“Sierra de la Plata”). De Solis’s discovery became known as the silver river (“Rio de la Plata”). As centuries passed, explorers sought the fabled treasure to no avail. The name stuck, eventually becoming “the land of silver,” Tierra Argentina (“Argentina” is another word for “silver).

6ChileA Spicy Dispute

Thanksgiving dinners are never complete without a slice of turkey, the fowl that makes young minds wonder why it’s named after a country. (The bird was earlier known as the “Turkey coq“— everything that came from the shipping ports of Constantinople were aptly affixed with that description, from “Turkey rugs” from Persia, to “Turkey flour” from India.)

Still, there’s Chile—derived from the Mapuche word “Chilli,” or “where the land ends.” Perhaps the native Mapuche walked westward from Argentina and found out that the continent ended at the Chilean shores overlooking the Pacific Ocean? Another possible origin is “cheele-cheele,” the Mapuche imitation of a bird call.

Whatever the case, Spanish conquistadors heard of these tales from the Incas. Upon arriving back in Europe, they called themselves “The Men of Chilli.”

5SpainA History Of Erroneous Names

Spaniards coined several names for the lands they discovered, which stuck until modern times. One such case is another nation in South America. In 1499, Spanish explorer Alonso de Ojeda and a certain compatriot named Amerigo Vespucci saw natives living in houses on stilts along the coast and rivers. They named the land Venezuela—the “Little Venice.”

The Spanish tradition of naming lands for erroneous or faulty observations goes back thousands of years. The ancient seafaring peoples of Phoenicia, forerunners of modern exploration, found lands far west of the Mediterranean some 3,000 years ago. These lands had a multitude of what they thought of as hyraxes (shrew mice), so they named it “I-shapan-im“—“Island of the Hyrax.” When the Romans came to rule much of the European continent they modified the name of this land to “Hispania.”

However, the animals on the “Island of the Hyrax”/”Hispania” were not even rodents—they were actually rabbits. Thus, Spain, the empire of explorers who’ve handed down the names of cities and countries based on false legends or erroneous interpretations, was itself derived from faulty observation.

4MoldovaMan’s Best Friend

The Roman prince Dragos had been hunting a wisent, or a wild bison, for many days. His companions, including several hunting dogs, chased the animal until they were spent. Disappointed that his quarry would escape, Dragos’s spirits were uplifted when his favorite dog Molda continued on with the hunt. Molda kept tracking the bison’s scent until man and man’s best friend cornered the wild animal near the banks of a river.

A vicious fight ensued, and when it was over, the bison was dead, and so was Molda. Dragos was so saddened by the loss of his faithful companion that he named the surrounding lands after her.

Some sources mention only the bison and the story of the hunt; others add the prince’s dog as part of the tale. Still, the legend of the hunt became symbolic for the country—even its flag contains the image of the bison.

3CanadaLittle Villages And Mostly Nothing At All

When the French explorer Jacques Cartier sailed past the St. Lawrence River, his native guides remarked that this was the route to “Kanata“—a village. It was. But no native tribes called themselves the Kanata; it was simply what they called assorted villages as they migrated across the vast, snowy wilderness. Cartier probably misheard the term and called the land “Canada” instead.

Another tale, albeit less popular, involves the Spaniards once more. The story tells of how the explorers were looking for fabled riches in the Americas. When they found none, they called the place “aca nada” or “ca nada” (meaning “nothing here“). When the French arrived years later, natives shouted “aca nada!” to tell them there was nothing of importance for the colonizers. The French, thinking it was the name of the country, ended up calling it “Canada.”

Combining the two stories perhaps illustrates what modern-day Canada is like—villages (towns and cities), and a whole bunch of unpopulated wilderness in between.

2PakistanThe Country, The Acronym

“Pakistan,” in Urdu, means “Land of the Pure” (“Pak” means “pure” and “-stan,” of course, means “land”).

Modern Pakistan formed on August 14, 1947, following the partitioning of India. However, the first use of the word “Pakistan” comes a decade earlier, from Choudhy Ramat Ali, a Muslim nationalist who advocated a separate Muslim state in the subcontinent.

Ali published his “Now or Never” pamphlet on January 28, 1933 as an appeal to the British government, writing of how 30 million Muslims wished for independence. These citizens were from the following regions: Punjab, Afghan Province, Kashmir, Sind, and Baluchistan. Combining their letters gives the acronym “PAKSTAN.”

1CzechoslovakiaThe Hyphen War

A hilarious dispute arose after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, ruled by the Communist regime for the last 30 years, had fallen in “The Velvet Revolution,” a bloodless coup. Local politicians set to work on what the new democracy should be called.

The first idea was to drop the word “Socialist.” The new nation would be known as the “Czechoslovak Republic,” which had been one of its older names. But Slovak politicians did not like the idea, feeling it diminished their importance. They wanted a hyphen added, as it would symbolize a connection.

The new proposal calling the country the “Czecho-Slovak Republic” did not sit well with the Czechs, who hated it. Even Winston Churchill himself disliked its usage, saying that “one must regard the hyphen as a blemish to be avoided whenever possible.”

The citizens returned to the drawing board, with the Czechs and Slovacs now each using their own name. In Czech, the country was the “Czeskoslovenska federativni republika,” without a hyphen. In Slovak, it was “Czesko-slovenska federativna republica,” with a hyphen. A month later, it was changed to “Czech and Slovak Federative Republic”—this, too, was not satisfactory.

This Hyphen War only truly was settled on January 1, 1993. Facing conflicts on how to run the country, politicians just gave up and decided it would be in everyone’s best interest for the two nations to split up.

Everyone was finally happy. Just as the area had peacefully become democratic due to the Velvet Revolution, this peaceful split became known as The Velvet Divorce, creating the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

+The Forgotten Welshman Who Gave America Its Name

We’ve recently discussed how various civilizations, some from Europe, might have reached the Americas hundreds of years before Columbus did. Columbus, who had landed on modern-day Haiti, was sure he was somewhere near India. One man who was part of his expeditions, the aforementioned Amerigo Vespucci, knew full well that this was a new continent, and his tales of this “new world” amazed two Germans who were reprinting an ancient treatise on geography. The Germans incorporated Vespucci’s discovery in the treatise’s preface:

“There is a fourth quarter of the world which Amerigo Vespucci has discovered and which for this reason we can call ‘America’ or the land of Americo.”

However, a second theory involves Welshman Richard Amerike (or Ap Meryk), who funded an expedition that reached Newfoundland in 1496. One piece of evidence supporting this theory is that the US flag’s “Stars and Stripes” design is similar to that of the Amerike family’s coat-of-arms.

Jo lives in “The Island of King Philip II of Spain.” How about you? Share tales of how your country got its name in the comments section, or scold him if he forgot your nation via email at [email protected].

For a war that affected nearly every country in the world, only a few nations seem to get mentioned when we talk about World War II. Germany, England, Russia, Japan, and the United States are sure to come up, but many more countries get left out. The other nations of the world were involved, though—and we forget that some of those places did a lot more than you might realize.

10 Australia Fired The First Allied Shot

On September 4, 1939, the morning after Great Britain declared war on Germany, a boat passed by a fort at Point Nepean. The fort’s personnel called for it identify itself, and when it refused, they became panicked that it might be a German ship, bringing the war to Australia. The fort launched a warning shot across the bow of the ship, sending what some consider to be the first Allied shot of World War II.

The shot itself isn’t that remarkable. The ship turned out to be Australian after all, so it wasn’t even against an enemy ship. The gun battery, however, is. By sheer coincidence, the very same battery also fired the first Allied shot of World War I.

The Australians would fire many more. By the end of the war, 27,000 Australian soldiers had given their lives.

9 Canada Built The Third-Largest Navy On Earth

At the beginning of World War II, Canada was not a major military force. Despite its large size, it had a population of only 11 million and was armed with a navy of only 15 ships and an air force of 235 pilots.

When Germany invaded Poland, though, the Canadians started getting ready. In ten days, Canada invested $20,000,000 into building up its armory—and they started building. They trained nearly 50,000 pilots and built 800,000 trucks, 471 naval ships, and 16,000 aircraft. And they sent 730,000 men off to fight.

They were the biggest contributors to the British air training plan and gained a worldwide reputation for their air force. Most amazingly of all, by the end of the war, Canada had the third-largest navy on the planet.

8 India Had the World’s Largest Volunteer Army

When India called on its people to fight, they signed up. An incredible 2.5 million Indian men volunteered to fight in World War II, forming the largest volunteer army in the world. Not every one of them ended up on the front lines. Some worked in factories or defended the country against air raids.

Those who did, though, made a massive difference. One group called The Fourteenth Army, a mixed force of British, Indian, and African soldiers, recaptured Burma. It was a turning point in the war, and by the end, 30 Indian soldiers had earned the Victoria Cross, the highest British medal of honor.

7 Malays Fought England’s Last Stand In Asia

In 1942, the Japanese advanced on Singapore, a major strategic point for the British army. England’s military base there was their access point to Asia, and without it, they would be at a major disadvantage. England’s last stand, though, wasn’t fought by British soldiers; it was fought by Malays. A man named Adnan Saidi and his unit held the ground at Opium Hill, determined to hold against the Japanese to the last man.

At one point, a troop with turbans on their heads dressed in British-Indian uniforms came toward them. At first, they seemed to be a relief army from India, but Saidi noticed something was off. These men marched in lines of four, while the British usually marched in lines of three. They were Japanese soldiers in disguise. Saidi’s men opened fire, and the assault was stopped.

After that, the Japanese got frustrated and launched an all-out attack. Still, Saidi and his men stayed and fought, shooting until the last bullet was fired—and fighting with bayonets after that.

All but one man died. The Japanese overran the place, and Britain lost its key base in Asia. But the Malays, at least, gave them a fight.

6 Switzerland Wasn’t Entirely Neutral

The Swiss didn’t just sit there and let World War II happen. Officially, they were neutral, but they still played a role. They didn’t want the war coming across their borders, and they defended their airspace.

At one point, this meant shooting down 11 German planes that entered Swiss airspace en route to France. The Germans were furious. They demanded an apology and threatened to retaliate. The Swiss, though, threw the blame right back at them and demanded that they stop flying over their land.

When the Allies started fighting back, Switzerland wasn’t always left alone. Some of the bombings meant for Germany landed on them, including a US bombing that killed 100 people. The Americans insisted that it was an accident, although the Swiss weren’t so sure.

By the end, the Americans had blasted Switzerland with enough of an onslaught that they had to pay more than $14 million in damages.

5 Kenya Fought Against Both Italy And Japan

Nearly 100,000 Kenyans signed up to fight in the King’s African Rifles. They were, by far, the biggest part of Britain’s African army, making up one-third of its soldiers, and they played a big role in the war in Africa. The Kenyans defended their land against an Italian invasion and helped the King’s African Rifles fight—and stop—the Italian invasion across East Africa. After that, they went on to Madagascar and Burma.

The Kenyans struggled with racism throughout the war. African soldiers were paid less than white ones and could never be promoted to a commanding rank. Still, they found some ways to take advantage of the stereotypes against them. One soldier told a writer that, to terrify Japanese soldiers, the Kenyans would pretend they were cannibals getting ready for a taste of Japanese.

4 Poland Broke Enigma First

Alan Turing gets all the credit, but he was actually the second person to crack Germany’s enigma code. The first was Marian Rejewski, a Polish cryptographer.

As early as 1932, Poland had started work to crack German’s complex enigma code. Working with documents stolen by French spies, a Polish team struggled to duplicate the enigma machine—and it worked. Rejewski managed to solve the cypher and made the first duplicates of the enigma machine.

Unfortunately, the Germans realized that their code had been cracked and increased the complexity tenfold. The Poles were stuck, and in 1939, realizing that an invasion was imminent, they sent all their work to England for the British to carry it on and braced for the worst.

That work made it to Alan Turing, who built on it to crack the more complex code, but he never would have done it without the work of Marian Rejewski.

3 Finland Held Off An Invasion Of One Million Russians

In 1939, Finland entered World War II. The Soviet Union had been trying to barter a trade, wanting control of several Finnish islands, but when Finland refused, they moved their troops in.

The Soviet army was massive. There were one million troops marching on Finland, leaving them outnumbered three to one. Finland called for help from Britain and France, but none came, so they had to fight the Soviets themselves.

Finland lost—but they dealt a major blow to the USSR in the process, killing 320,000 Soviet soldiers. Finland only suffered 70,000 casualties. The Finnish had to give up some of their land, but they shot a major hole in the Soviet army.

2 Almost Every Soldier From One Armenian Town Earned A Medal

In Armenia, a small mountain village called Chardakhlu played an incredible role in World War II. Of the 1,250 villagers who were enlisted to fight in the Soviet army, 853 were awarded medals, 12 went on to be generals, and seven became heroes of the Soviet Union.

Two men from the little town made it to the highest echelons of the Soviet army. Hamazasp Babadzhanian became the chief marshal of the armored troops of the Soviet, while Ivan Bagramyan became the marshal of the Soviet Union.

By the end of the war, the little town had some of the most decorated fighters in the country. Nearly every man came home with medals on his chest—or didn’t come home at all.

1 Russia Killed Eight Out Of Ten German Soldiers

Admittedly, Russia isn’t exactly an overlooked country in World War II. It’s well-known that Russia played a major role in the war, but most people don’t realize how massive that role was.

We’ve heard a lot of boasts about the United States turning the tides of the war, but the credit really should go to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was responsible for 80 percent of all German casualties. And the USSR came into the war late. If we start counting from 1941, the Soviets are responsible for 95 percent of all German casualties.

A lot of this happened during the Battle of Stalingrad, where Russian soldiers wiped out 20,000 German men each day. Russia’s army was more than big; it had its fair share of talent, too. Nine out of ten of World War II’s deadliest snipers were from the USSR.

The Soviet Union didn’t just play a role in the battle against the Germans—they completely devastated them.

The recent Scottish independence referendum ended with a defeat for the nationalists, but the mere fact that it was held at all shows how far European secession movements have come in recent years. Even while the European Union has promoted greater integration across the continent, a wide variety of regions and ethnic minorities have begun to press their claims for independence. While would-be states like Catalonia, Flanders, and Scotland are well-known, Europe boasts a bewildering array of wannabe countries—the European Free Alliance links over 40 nationalist movements, and there are many more outside of it.

10Galicia

Galicia is an autonomous region in northwest Spain, on the border with Portugal. Galicians consider themselves to be a distinct ethnic and cultural group, and the Spanish government recognizes them as a historical nationality within Spain. But for many in Galicia, that’s just not enough and there are plenty of nationalist and separatist parties on the regional political scene. Most of them act jointly as part of the Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG), which works for further devolution of power from the central government to the regional assembly. Many BNG members also seek eventual complete independence from Spain, hoping to form a new republic within the European Union. Following a split within the BNG, independence is also espoused by the rising left-wing radical Alternativa Galega de Esquerda (AGE).

Despite the strong cultural identity of the Galician people, the electoral performance of the BNG has typically been relatively modest. Meanwhile, AGE has made impressive gains, winning 14 percent of the vote in the 2012 regional elections, but remains something of a fringe party. With this in mind, it seems that the dream of Galician independence is unlikely to become a reality within the next few years—but it certainly isn’t dead either.

9The Aland Islands

An archipelago of tiny islands in the Baltic Sea, Aland has already obtained a surprising amount of autonomy while officially remaining part of Finland. Although the islands only have around 28,000 inhabitants, approximately 0.5 percent of the total Finnish population, they have their own parliament, which has extensive powers—including the right to veto any attempt to limit those powers by the central Finnish government. Regional citizenship is required to own land or vote in local elections. Aland is also the only region of Finland to have a single official language—Swedish.

Under the Act on the Autonomy of Aland, the islands are also completely demilitarized, have their own police force and postage stamps, and can issue their own passports. The islands were able to obtain this level of autonomy after Finland declared independence in 1917. At the time, Aland islanders voted overwhelmingly to leave and join Sweden. Finland refused to give up sovereignty and the League of Nations ruled that Helsinki could keep the islands as long as they were granted significant rights and protections.

The subsequent compromise has lasted for almost a century and it seems hard to believe that Aland will ever separate from Finland. However, some islanders complain that the Finnish government has not kept its promises and that it has become increasingly hard to do business in Swedish. Alands Framtid (Future of Aland), a local political party which seeks full independence for the islands as a sovereign microstate, reached almost 10 percent of the vote in the most recent regional elections.

8The Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands are an archipelago of 18 beautiful islands in the North Atlantic. Located roughly halfway between Scotland and Iceland, they’re majestically isolated from all of their neighbors. Ruled by Denmark since the 14th century, the islands are currently a self-governing nation under the Danish crown.

National sentiment has a long history in the Faroes—they first tried to hold an independence referendum in the chaos following the end of World War II. Although the secessionists won by a small margin (48.7 percent of the vote, compared to 47.2 percent against), the Danish parliament opposed independence, arguing that a majority had not voted for it. Further confusing matters, the Danish prime minister supported the secessionists and announced that the islands would be granted independence. Two days of confusion followed, until the King of Denmark annulled the referendum and dissolved the Faroese parliament. New elections were held, but this time the parties that favored association with Denmark managed a narrow win and negotiated home rule for the islands.

The independence question subsided until 2011, when a proposed Faroese constitution proved controversial. The Danish government claimed the document, which would have put even more powers in Faroese hands, was “incompatible” with Denmark’s own constitution, telling the islands to chose between withdrawing the document or immediate independence.

For fairly practical reasons, the Faroese government chose to withdraw the draft. According to a prominent local politician, the islands are still too dependent on Danish subsidies to consider full independence. In the meantime, pro-independence parties have a majority in the local parliament and are doubtless waiting for the moment when they can afford to govern without outside financial support.

7Corsica

Corsicans proudly claim that they’ve been ruled many times, but never conquered. Although the island has been a region of France for hundreds of years, its people still don’t consider themselves French, Italian, or anything else. They’re simply Corsicans.

The island first proclaimed its independence back in the 18th century, forming a republic which lasted for 14 years before it was annexed by France in 1769. Often neglected by the French state, the island saw an upsurge of nationalism in the second half of the 20th century, when several separatist movements were founded. Perhaps the most infamous is the National Liberation Front of Corsica (FLNC), a militant group which has carried out bombings, bank robberies, extortion, and arson in the name of independence. A separate nationalist group was responsible for the 1998 assassination of the top-ranking French official on the island.

In recent decades, the French government has granted more autonomy to the island and backed programs to protect the Corsican language, undermining local support for the nationalists. Nevertheless, the fight for Corsican independence continues, with the FLNC claiming responsibility for sporadic bombings over the past decade.

6Sardinia

Unlike their Corsican neighbors, the nationalist movement on the Italian island of Sardinia has sought independence through non-violent means. This model has huge support from the Sardinian people. According to a 2014 poll conducted by the universities of Cagliari and Edinburgh, a whopping 87 percent of Sardinians want further powers for the island’s local government, while around 41 percent are in favor of full independence immediately.

However, so far this support has failed to translate into electoral success for pro-independence parties. In the 2014 elections, pro-sovereignty parties only took around 18 percent of the total vote, while the pro-independence candidate for regional President came third with only 10.8 percent of the votes. In fact, one of the largest pro-independence blocs was left without any seats in the local parliament at all, due to a law which requires coalitions to secure at least 10 percent of the total vote in order to be eligible for candidates to be elected.

However, the independence movement is far from dead, with supporters claiming an online referendum should be held. One newly founded group is even suggesting the island should secede from Italy and join Switzerland instead.

5Transdniestria

Located between Romania and Ukraine, Moldova is a tiny state about the size of Maryland. Since 1990, around 10 percent of its territory has formed an even tinier breakaway state known as Transdniestria, or Transnistria, or the Pridnestrovskaya Moldavskaya Respublika.

Moldova was part of the Soviet Union, gaining independence as the USSR began to split up in the early 1990s. But the Russian-speakers of Transdniestria didn’t want to be a minority in a Romanian-speaking country and refused to join the new state. Tensions simmered until 1992, when an armed conflict broke out. Russian military support for the secessionists meant that Moldova was unable to impose its authority on Transdniestria, and the region has been a de facto state ever since.

Nowadays, Transdniestria has its own constitution, flag, national anthem, coat of arms, government, parliament, currency, and military—the only thing it lacks is international recognition. In fact, Transdniestria has never been recognized by a single member state of the United Nations, and is thus officially still considered part of Moldova. Transdniestria has attempted to shore up its position with continued independence referendums, the last being held in 2006. A massive 97 percent of voters supported independence, with the possibility of free association with Russia, but even the referendum hasn’t been recognized by other countries yet.

4South Tyrol

A mountainous geographical region based on a former province of the Austrian Empire, Tyrol is currently split between Austria and Italy, with South Tyrol as an autonomous province of Italy with a large German-speaking population. Under Benito Mussolini, the fascist government tried to Italianize South Tyrol by banning the use of the German language, but such policies actually increased local identity, culminating in a series of bombings carried out by the South Tyrolean Liberation Committee in the 1960s (the organization no longer exists and the current secessionist movement espouses non-violence).

These days, the province is autonomous enough that only 10 percent of taxes raised there go to the central government. Despite this, there is widespread support for political parties advocating reunification with Austria. Until this can be organized, they believe that the province should secede and form an interim Free State of South Tyrol. Such parties usually control around a third of the South Tyrolean Provincial Council, although their popularity varies depending on the political climate.

3Venice

During a weekend when the eyes of the world were focused on the Russian-backed referendum in Crimea, a referendum for independence from Italy went almost unnoticed. An estimated two million residents of the Italian region Veneto, whose capital is Venice, voted overwhelmingly to declare independence and reform the ancient Venetian Republic. The referendum was conducted online, using digital ID numbers to identify eligible voters. A massive 89 percent voted in favor of secession, surprising pollsters, who had previously estimated only around 65 percent were in favor.

The Italian government refused to recognize the referendum, saying that it was not organized by any official body and consequently open to manipulation, but it’s undeniable that nationalist movements have strong support within the region. Veneto is one of Italy’s richest regions, and locals feel that they don’t get much as they give from the government, complaining that most of their taxes go to subsidize poorer regions of Southern Italy. The referendum won’t result in immediate independence, but it’s hard to believe the issue will simply go away either.

2North Cyprus

A large island in the Eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus has long been split between a Greek majority and a Turkish minority. When the country became a member of the European Union back in 2004, they made it without the Turkish north, which has effectively long been an independent country. The issue dates back to 1974, when the Cypriot National Guard, with support from the Greek Junta, attempted a putsch with the goal of making Cyprus part of Greece. In response, Turkey launched an invasion, claiming the coup violated a treaty signed between the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey.

The Turkish invasion eventually resulted in the island being split in two, with the dividing line passing right through the capital of Nicosia. The northern third became the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983. The new republic has never been widely recognized or accepted into the UN and remains heavily economically dependent on Turkey. This dependence, as well as the possibility of a Cypriot entrance into the EU, sparked hopes for reunification. In 2004, a referendum was held proposing to merge the island into a federated state. In the north, the Turks approved of the plan, while the vast majority of Greeks rejected the proposal. As a result, Cyprus remains split to this day.

1Republika Srpska

In English, Republika Srpska means “Serbian Republic,” but is not to be confused with the Republic of Serbia, since it is actually one of two entities comprising Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since the 1990s, the tiny Balkan country has been split between the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. Bosniaks and Croats make up the majority in the former, while Serbs are dominant in the latter.

Republika Srpska was founded during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, right after the referendum on independence in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While most of the Bosnian parliament proclaimed the new republic, ethnic Serbian deputies refused to support the secession and held their own assembly in the city of Banja Luka, forming their own state in response. The infamous Bosnian War quickly followed.

After the war, Republika Srpska became an autonomous entity within Bosnia, but many Bosnian Serbs still hoped to form an independent state, which would eventually merge with Serbia. The success of Kosovo’s independence movement fueled these dreams, with Serbian leaders claiming that if Kosovo had the right to separate from Serbia, then they had the right to separate from Bosnia and Herzegovina as well. Although still part of Bosnia, Republika Srpska has recently sent their own representative to Brussels, the seat of the European Union. Nobody from the EU attended the ceremony marking the event, but it created even more tension with Bosniak officials and sent yet another hint that the Serbs see their future as lying outside of Bosnia.

Petar Todorovski is a freelance writer.

The things people obsess over are usually predictable. Sex, drugs, and alcohol are usual suspects. People may obsess about their weight or about much money they are making and how to make more of it. In country after country, these are common fixations.

However, some countries break the mold and establish new categories for obsession. Whether banal, obscure, or just plain goofy, the following national obsessions make you wonder what exactly is going on in their respective nations.

10 Russia Is Obsessed With Not Smiling

Russians are not big on smiling.

With that in mind, psychologist Kuba Kyrs at the Polish Academy of Sciences ran an experiment. He had thousands of people in 44 countries look at a series of eight smiling and non-smiling faces and asked them to assess those people for intelligence and honesty. When the results came in, the Russian participants ranked smiling people low on both intelligence and honesty.^[1]

Kyrs’s research also indicated that the more corrupt a society was, the more likely the meaning of a smile was weakened, and the trustworthiness of the person smiling was undercut. And, no surprise, it just so happens that Russia is a very corrupt country. In a 2017 ranking of countries and public sector corruption, Russia finished a dismal 135 out of 180 nations.

9 Paraguay Is Obsessed With A Forgotten US President

There are many long-dead, world-famous US presidents—like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy. However, there is one long-dead US president who is not famous around the world, or even in the United States, but is obsessed over in Paraguay. His name is Rutherford B. Hayes. He served from 1877 to 1881.

This obsession is perplexing until you learn that back in the 1860s, Paraguay fought the Triple Alliance War—so named because they faced an alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Predictably, this did not go well for Paraguay; the nation lost huge swaths of land to Brazil and Argentina. Later on, Argentina wanted a large wilderness region in Northern Paraguay known as the Chaco. With no United Nations or World Court, the two countries asked the US to resolve the matter. President Hayes sided with, you guessed it, Paraguay.^[2]

A very grateful Paraguay has named a city and a soccer team after him. They put his face on a postage stamp, and a bust of the man sits in the courtyard of an elementary school in the city of Villa Hayes. Forgotten everywhere else, Rutherford B. Hayes lives on as a hero in the hearts and minds of the people of Paraguay.

8 China Is Obsessed With Jaywalkers

Walking across the street in China is a little more complicated. For instance, if you jaywalk, they put your picture up on public screens. If you want it removed, you have a choice: Help a traffic officer for 20 minutes, or pay a small fine.

In the city of Daye, they have installed bright yellow posts that spray the feet of jaywalkers. The system works with laser sensors. Move off the curb too early, and you get sprayed. Not only that, but the posts have facial recognition technology that display the offender’s face on a big screen beside the crossing. This system may be in place due to the over 260,000 road traffic fatalities in China in 2013.^[3]

Or, the reason may be more sinister. China is apparently working on a social credit system that scores each and every citizen on how “well” they behave in public.

7 Iran Is Obsessed With Nose Jobs

From 2011 to 2013, 240,000 Iranians underwent rhinoplasty. Ninety percent of all cosmetic surgeries in Iran are nose jobs. According to the Rhinology Research Society, it is Iran and not the United States which has the highest nose job rate.^[4]

Iranian women wear a hijab that covers their hair and loose clothing to obscure their bodies. Busy Iranian plastic surgeon Nabiollah Shariati has opined that the Islamic dress code is what fuels the desire—mostly among women from 20 to 30 years of age—to get a nose job: “Because of the hijab women have to wear, the face becomes the most prominent part of the body.”

6 Iceland Is Obsessed With Licorice

With a population of around 340,000, Iceland should be known as the “Land of Licorice.”

Iceland is mad about licorice. How mad? Gas stations and supermarket candy aisles are packed with black licorice. Ice cream shops offer soft-serve licorice that you can get covered in a licorice hard shell. They’re especially fond of taking the simple perfection that is chocolate and combining it with licorice. Icelanders consume large quantities of licorice powders, licorice-coated raisins, and chocolate-covered licorice gummies.

Why? In the early days, Iceland’s first settlers found it difficult to grow anything in the land’s harsh climate. Also, due to the icy waters that surrounded them, it made importing other foods a crapshoot at best. Enter licorice—which they found they could grow with ease. Quickly, it became the Icelanders’ go-to sugar fix.^[5]

5 Germany Is Obsessed With A Little-Known British Short Film

Every New Year’s Eve, upwards of 17 million Germans (or 21 percent of the population) gather around their TVs to watch an 18-minute comedy sketch from 1960s British television called Dinner For One.^[6]

The sketch takes place at a dinner party. An old woman has invited her friends over for a feast to celebrate her 90th birthday. Trouble is, these friends have been dead for years. So, her butler has to not only serve the meal but pretend to be each and every one of her friends. Wackiness ensues.

This goofy TV tradition, which goes back roughly five decades, has inspired German catchphrases and drinking games. One theory as to why the Germans are so crazy about this ancient TV sketch is that they hunger for a time when TV brought the whole family together.

4 Taiwan Is Obsessed With Claw Machines

Claw machines rule Taiwan. Claw game arcades have increased three-fold over the last two years alone. According to the Taiwanese Ministry of Finance, one arcade exists for every two convenience stores in Taiwan. Recently, they have become Taiwan’s entertainment industry’s largest tax income source. Even the Taiwanese Central Bank had to get into the act and issue more coins to meet the incredible demand from players.

And the prizes in Taiwanese claw machines aren’t just stuffed animals, either. Some are packed with hairdryers, lingerie, and vegetables.

Economic reasons seem to explain the craze. Taiwanese wages are flat. Claw machines are cheap entertainment. So, to supplement their wages, workers see these machines as a great investment, and those who play see them as a cheap entertainment. It’s win-win or no-win, depending on the person operating the claw.^[7]

3 Argentina Is Obsessed With Psychoanalysis

Argentina loves the couch—particularly lying on it. There are 194 psychologists per 100,000 people in Argentina. That is easily enough for first in the world. Finland is second, with only 57 per 100,000.^[8]

Psychoanalysis is seen as so important to the average Argentinian that the nation’s current president, Mauricio Macri, is behind a push to get his fellow countrymen on the couch. One of his key advisers believes that Argentina “needs to be cured.” The government hopes that psychoanalysis on a huge scale may be the key to unlock the door to economic stability and curbing the country’s high inflation.

Experts seem to think that this hunger Argentinians have for delving into the deepest recesses of their psyche comes from the fact that most of them originate from families that emigrated from Spain and Italy. In other words, they have serious identity issues. Back in the 1990s, a common saying was that Argentinians “are Italians who speak Spanish, act as if they’re French and think they’re British.”

2 Australia Is Obsessed With Nicknames

We all enjoy slapping nicknames onto people and activities. We call basketball “hoops” and dancing “cutting rug.” Marijuana itself has dozens of nicknames, including the awesome “wacky tobaccy.”

Australians, however, do it best and do it the most.

Oxford Dictionaries says that Australia gave us the single most important word of the 21st century: “selfie.” Australians call ambulances “ambos” and mobile phones “mobes.” Mosquitos are “mozzies,” and poverty is “povo.”

When Australians want to have sex, they may ask their partners if they want to “have a root.” If you are lonely or exposed, you would be “like a shag on a rock.” “Shag,” in this case, refers to a common Australian bird that likes to hang out on rocks by the ocean shore. Sorry.

Some believe that this Australian obsession with nicknames reflects key Australian values, “such as mateship, friendliness, informality, and solidarity with other Australians.”^[9]

1 Denmark Is Obsessed With Being Cozy

Deriving from a 16th-century Norwegian word, hugga, the Danish art of hygge is a national obsession.^[10]

What some simply call “chillin’ ” the Danes define as “a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.” In other words, chillin’.

Winter is when hygge is at its most hygge. It’s cold, unpleasant and anti-hygge outside, but inside, by the fireplace, with your wool socks on and a hot chocolate or, preferably, a latte in your hands, it’s very, very hygge. Just sit and drink and be.

And there may be something to this hygge. The latest World Happiness rankings list Denmark as second only to the Finns.

I am a writer based in Canada.
I come from a screenplay background. I have written for TV.
I am a huge film buff. I love music—write my own songs.
I am a natural skeptic. I even doubt myself sometimes.

Retiring to Costa Rica, making a killing in Hong Kong, hanging out with other anime nerds in Japan—the reasons for moving abroad are legion and frequently awesome. It’s estimated that 2.2 million to 6.8 million Americans are currently enjoying the expat lifestyle, and most of them probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

But living abroad isn’t all sunshine and lollipops and guilt-free sex with hot locals. Plenty of the world’s most popular expat destinations have a darker, hidden side to them. Have a bad experience in one of these countries, and your dream life abroad could turn into a screaming nightmare.

10 Japan’s Justice System Is Built On False Confessions

Japan is a country so safe that it makes Canada look like Somalia. Its intentional homicide rate is around 0.3 per 100,000 people, far less than America’s 4.7. It has barely any terrorism. In 2013, only 12 people were shot to death, and even that paltry number was a massive increase. In 2012, the total number of shooting deaths was three.

There are many complex reasons why Japan is a nonviolent society. One is that its police force is utterly terrifying.

If you’re going to have a run-in with the law, pray it isn’t in Japan. Police have the right to hold you without charge for 23 days, and they’ll spend most of that time torturing you. Suspects have tables rammed into them, their feet stomped on, and threats bellowed into their ears. Sleep deprivation is common, and choosing to remain silent is taken as admission of guilt.

The only way to stop this onslaught is to sign a confession, and good luck retracting it later. Courts assume that a confession is an admission of guilt and will sentence you accordingly. People frequently go down for decades for crimes they clearly didn’t commit. It’s estimated that one-tenth of all Japanese prisoners are in jail due to false confessions, and the government has no interest in reopening their cases.

9 Thailand Will Jail You For Insulting The King’s Dog

Thailand is often portrayed as an east Asian paradise—a country where the girls are beautiful, the cost of living is low, and the weather is great. All of this is true. It’s also a country where you can be thrown in jail for over a decade for insulting the king’s dog.

The love the Thais have for their king makes the British seem like a nation of royalty-hating republicans. Strict lese-majeste laws hand down substantial penalties to anyone who criticizes or insults the royal family. Since the 2014 coup, the military junta has extended these laws to even cover the king’s pets. In December 2015, Thanakorn Siripaiboon was charged before a military court for making a “sarcastic” Internet post about Copper, the king’s dog. It’s expected that he will receive several years in prison.

You better believe these laws apply to foreigners. In 2007, a Swiss expat was jailed for 10 years after he spray-painted over a picture of the king. The current US ambassador, Glyn Davies, is being investigated for criticizing the mere existence of these dumb laws.

8 Vietnam’s Drug Laws Are Utterly Brutal

Compared to many of its neighbors, where drug possession can lead to execution, Vietnam has a pretty relaxed drugs policy. Users are sent to rehabilitation centers instead of jails, where they cure their addictions through work. Sounds pretty progressive, right? Maybe in theory. In practice, the “rehabilitation centers” are brutal forced labor camps.

Those who’ve been through the system have reported beatings, torture, and being forced to work extremely long hours, making products for private companies. Missing a work quota can get you beaten. Complaining can get you beaten. Basically, just showing your face can result in some random guard deciding to put his fist into it, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

In some ways, the centers are even worse than prison, where at least you have a release date. Some in Vietnam’s rehabilitation program have been held for years without due process or any end in sight. Perhaps it’s no surprise that inmates frequently stage violent mass breakouts from these facilities.

7 Italy’s Taxes Are Staggeringly High

With its endless sun, world-class culture, and relaxed lifestyle, Italy might seem like the perfect country. So it may come as a shock to realize that it frequently features in polls about the worst countries for expats. The reason for this is likely financial. Any foreigner who moves to Italy can expect to be hammered with crippling taxes.

Tax rates in general are high in Italy. By some estimates, they’re the highest of all the G20 nations. A high wage earner can expect to take home only slightly more than half their salary, compared to around 60 percent in the US. This isn’t even the worst aspect. Thanks to its byzantine bureaucracy, filing tax returns in Italy is filled with hidden charges seemingly designed to catch foreigners out.

Since 2013, expats have had to declare all overseas assets. This includes the $14 floating around in your old US bank account. Forget to declare that spare change, and you can get slapped with a hefty fine. Same deal with foreign earnings. If you make $13.68 selling a T-shirt on eBay while living in Italy, the government will take a chunk of that sweet pocket change off you. Forget to tell them about it, and you’ll find yourself facing legal action.

6 India Has A Terrifying Number Of Traffic Accidents

The 2011 film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel opened people’s eyes to the idea of retiring to India. The story revolves around a bunch of British pensioners who move to the subcontinent and have heartwarming adventures. In real life, those adventures would more likely come with the appellation “death-defying.” India is the top destination on Earth for deadly traffic accidents.

According to data collected by the World Health Organization (WHO), more people die on Indian roads than anywhere else in the world. In 2009, the country recorded 105,725 fatal traffic accidents, with the WHO estimating the real number as closer to 200,000. By way of comparison, the US had the third-highest number with a mere 42,642. In a single typical year, bad driving kills more people in India than malaria does in the entire world.

This isn’t helped by the government’s recent decision to relax road safety laws. Since spring 2015, running over and killing a child gets you a $780 fine and a single year in prison. That’s the maximum penalty. There are many reports of wealthy teenagers hitting and killing homeless people and not even having their licenses suspended.

5 Nicaragua Suffers Endemic Corruption

Nicaragua is one of the world’s current retirement hot spots, thanks to the tons of incentives that the government is offering foreigners to settle there. On top of that, it’s beautiful, cheap, and hot all year round. What’s not to love?

Corruption. That’s what’s not to love.

According to Transparency International, Nicaragua is one of the most corrupt societies in the Americas. Their 2014 rankings placed it at 133rd out of 175 nations globally, only one place ahead of notoriously corrupt Russia. Only Venezuela and Haiti scored worse in Latin America, and the number of people retiring to either of those nations is practically zero.

Although this corruption rarely touches foreign residents, it still rears its ugly head from time to time. Almost everyone living in the country has a story to tell about police shaking them down for a bribe, and throwing cash around to get stuff done is a common fact of life. Still, plenty of people think it’s worth it for views as stunning as this one.

4 Singapore Has Absurdly Strict Laws

Tiny Singapore is one of the wealthiest, cleanest, and safest nations on Earth. It’s also a top destination for expats looking to make a killing and come home filthy rich. But all that cleanliness and wealth creation comes at a price. Singapore is governed by laws that are often bizarre and always strict.

Some of the strictest have to do with keeping the city clean. Littering and spitting both carry fines, as do chewing gum and tossing cigarette butts away. These aren’t the sort of fines you can shrug off with a quick wave of a US dollar and a mumbled, “Sorry, tourist.” Singapore is a vastly rich country, and their fines reflect this. Anyone caught littering is forced to cough up a cool $1,000. Anyone caught urinating in an elevator is arrested.

These laws are certainly tough, but we imagine some of our readers might be behind them in principle. Littering and spitting are pretty disgusting, after all. But then there are laws that require stuff like flushing public toilets after use. Failure to do so can result in a $150 fine.

3 Britain Is Effectively Unaffordable

Britain Is Effectively Unaffordable
With its quaint villages, rolling hills, and bustling mega-capital of London, Britain can seem like a haven. There’s tea to drink, a queen to fawn over, and terrible food to complain about. Sounds perfect.

Of course, that’s all assuming that you can afford to live there. And we’re here to tell you that you almost certainly can’t.

The UK is currently in the middle of a massive housing bubble. Thanks to rich Russians, Chinese, and Saudis sinking all of their money into property in London, buying a home almost anywhere in the country is essentially unaffordable. The Guardian recently crunched the numbers for people looking to buy a house at the median price while earning the average British wage of £26,500 ($40,200) a year. For someone in those circumstances, they found that 91 percent of England and Wales would be beyond their means.

Of course, an expat would likely be making significantly above the UK average wage, but the problem persists. A worker on £45,000 a year ($68,300) would still find over half the country beyond their means, despite being in the top 20 percent of all UK earners.

It’s not until you hit the top 10 percent of earners at £60,500 ($91,800) a year that most of the country becomes affordable. Even then, 29 percent of it would still be out of reach. This includes most of the area around London—exactly where an expat’s job is most likely to be.

2 Dubai’s Drug Laws Are Fundamentally Insane

The easiest way to not fall afoul of other countries’ drug laws is to not do drugs while abroad, or so you’d think. Dubai is different in that you can still get in trouble without actually breaking the law.

Across the UAE, it’s common for authorities to check the bloodstreams of people entering their country. Under Emirati law, having even trace amounts of drugs in your blood counts as possession. Possession carries a mandatory four-year prison sentence.

The simple solution would be to not do drugs at all, but the list of things that the UAE considers “drugs” is long and absurdly complex. Herbal Spice will get you jail time, as will many types of painkillers. In 2005, a British woman was held for several weeks after medication for her back pain showed up during a random screening. It transpired that she’d taken some prescribed codeine before setting off on her vacation. While being held in jail, she contracted dysentery.

Sometimes, you don’t even need to take a banned substance to land yourself some jail time. One Swiss national was jailed after three poppy seeds from an airport bread roll were found clinging to his clothes.

1 China’s Air Wants To Kill You

As the next emerging superpower, China is a hot destination for Americans and Europeans. There’s history to be seen and money to be made, all while getting a fascinating peek at one of the few surviving communist regimes on Earth. All this comes with a price. China’s air will go out of its way to kill you stone dead.

We’ve all seen the images of Beijing suffocating under thick clouds of pollution, but few of us realize just how bad things really are. In November 2015, air pollution in northeastern China reached 50 times the WHO-recommended safe level. This is a level so high that most outlets described it as an “airpocalypse.” China’s own state-run news agency, which almost never criticizes anything, called it “doomsday.” When a similar smog hit Beijing in December, authorities issued a red alert, complete with wailing air raid–style sirens. Schools were closed, offices were shut, and millions of people were warned to stay indoors at all costs.

These smogs are deadly in a way that most of us can’t even imagine. A summer 2015 study published in the scientific journal PLOS One claimed that pollution was killing 1.6 million people in China each year—roughly 4,400 a day. That’s comparable to how many people were killed in the Ukrainian civil war in 2015. Those who don’t die can still find themselves suffering from long-term health problems even after they’ve moved away. Emigrating to a country like China may seem like a dream come true. Just be sure to pack your gas mask.

In the past few years, climate change has gone from a threat of the future to a disaster unfolding right in front of our eyes. Its effects are now being felt around the world, from shifting patterns of food production to natural disasters that are now more frequent and intense than any other time in recorded history. While there’s no doubt that it’s a global phenomenon that transcends national borders, some countries are right on the front line of this rapidly-developing crisis.

10. South Sudan

South Sudan is located in northeastern Africa, bordered by nations like Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and others. The country has proven particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the past few years, made worse by a recently-concluded civil war that continues to break out in armed skirmishes in many parts of the country. 

Currently, South Sudan is at a high risk of flooding and drought, with over 2 million people already displaced by climate-related factors. Water remains a scarce commodity throughout the country, with only 55% of the population having access to safe drinking water. Rainfall has also decreased in the region by 10-20% since the mid-1970s, which is a huge problem for many rural families that rely on rain for farming and animals. According to some estimates, about 95% of South Sudan depends on nature for survival. 

9. Madagascar

The Republic of Madagascar is one of the largest island nations in the world, lying about 250 miles off the southeastern coast of Africa. It’s also one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, thanks to the high frequency of disasters like floods, tropical storms, cyclones, and droughts. The country’s annual cyclone season, from November to March, usually comes with intense cyclones and storms, causing heavy rains, flooding, and rising sea levels in the past few years.

Additionally, Madagascar is also facing its most severe drought in the last four decades, particularly in the southern part of the country. The disaster has so far affected over a million and a half people across the region, largely due to its heavy reliance on subsistence agriculture and rain-fed crops. The rising price of water and extreme food scarcity, combined with the country’s economically-impoverished status, have intensified the consequences of these climate-related problems. Over the years, natural disasters like droughts, cyclones, floods, and extreme temperatures have caused a total damage of over $1 billion. 

8. Afghanistan

Despite its minimal contribution to global emissions, Afghanistan stands as one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change due to conflict and climate-related factors. Currently, the entire region is facing intensifying, extreme weather events like droughts, storms, floods, landslides, avalanches, and earthquakes. 

According to some reports, 80% of Afghans rely on agriculture for survival, making even slight climate shifts highly impactful on food production and availability, a problem that’s only made worse by outdated agricultural techniques and violence due to conflicts. Droughts are on the rise in almost all parts of the country, with about 64% of households and 50% of the population affected in 2022. There’s also acute water scarcity driven by rising temperatures and lower glacial melting rates, as sources of water like rivers and lakes dry up at a faster rate every year. 

7. Haiti

Haiti is a small island nation in the Caribbean region. Its location has made it more prone to disasters like floods, droughts, and hurricanes than other countries in the area, resulting in it being one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change around the world.

One problem specific to Haiti is its lack of trees, leading to soil erosion during heavy rains causing floods and landslides. The socioeconomic conditions within the country are further fueling the ongoing crisis, as a large part of the population relies on subsistence agriculture and depends on changing weather patterns to grow their food. Access to clean water is also growing scarcer by the year, adversely affecting public health and making all the above challenges even worse.

6. The Philippines

The Philippines is a western-Pacific island nation made up of more than 7,000 islands. Its unique topography makes it an ideal destination for tourists and explorers from around the world, though it also makes it particularly-prone to the oncoming effects of climate change. Every year, the country is hit by an average of 20 typhoons, and their frequency has only increased in the past few years. Five of the deadliest typhoons in the history of the Philippines have happened since 2006, each one more intense and damaging than the last.

Perhaps the most destructive of them was super typhoon Haiyan, or Yolanda, that claimed the lives of about 6,300 people. Rising sea levels further threaten the growing climate situation across the country; according to a report by Climate Central, southeast Asia is home to about 70% of 150 million people living in regions expected to submerge around the world by 2050.

5. Democratic Republic Of The Congo

Earlier known as Zaire, the Democratic Republic of Congo is easily one of the largest countries in Africa. According to reports from the last few years, the DRC has been identified as one of the most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change, particularly for its young population. According to assessment reports by UNICEF, Congolese children are the ninth-most-vulnerable to climate and environmental shocks worldwide.

By 2050, temperatures across the DRC could surge by 1–2.5 Celsius, accompanied by intensified heavy rainfall and prolonged droughts. In contrast, the southern region may experience decreased dry season rainfall. One can also expect a rise in sea levels in the coastal areas by 60-70 centimeters by 2080, adding to the overall risk of coastal erosion and water scarcity throughout the country. 

About 95% of the population in the DRC relies on farming crops like cassava and maize, both of which are severely threatened by climate-driven crop diseases. Additionally, the hydropower sector faces disruption due to reduced precipitation patterns, further threatening the energy and food security of the Congolese population.

4. Pakistan

As per the Global Climate Risk Index of 2021, the south-Asian country of Pakistan is the eighth-most-vulnerable nation to climate change in the long term. Over the last two decades, Pakistan has also been consistently ranked among the top 10 countries most susceptible to climate risks, thanks to thousands of climate-related fatalities and financial losses exceeding $4 billion due to climate-related factors. Furthermore, these effects compound the risk of conflict across the region, particularly over dwindling resources like water and food.

The recent heatwave has amplified Pakistan’s food insecurity crisis, with scorching temperatures damaging crop production and rendering arable land unusable for small farmers. Pakistan has also been increasingly vulnerable to recurring extreme weather events, like the devastating floods of 2010 and 2022. 

3. Ethiopia

Located in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia is one of the largest and most-populous countries on the continent. It’s highly vulnerable to climate change due to its exposure to extreme weather events like droughts, floods, volcanoes, and earthquakes, made worse by poverty and the country’s dependence on sectors like agriculture, water, tourism, and forestry.

Among all the factors, drought is perhaps the most damaging, as droughts in Ethiopia have increased in magnitude, frequency, and impact since the 1970s. A major drought in 2011 left millions in need of food aid, which was later found to be linked to livestock deaths due to pasture and water shortages. Due to climate change and other human factors, areas affected by drought and desertification are expanding across the country, combined with increasing flash floods and seasonal river floods. Projections show a potential 20% rise in extreme high rainfall events by the end of the century.

2. Somalia

Somalia is another African country facing some of the worst climate-based challenges around the world, with around 70% of its population dependent on agriculture and pastoralism. Increasingly severe floods and droughts in recent years also threaten farmers and pastoralists, combined with environmental degradation caused by industrial activities like charcoal production.

Moreover, Somalia is facing its most severe drought in close to four decades. The absence of national land use and disaster risk management policies at the state level have worsened the situation, with a high impact on local settlements. Women in rural areas are particularly vulnerable to the worst effects of climate change, largely due to their lack of decision-making powers and unequal access to resources within their communities. According to reports, Somalia ranks as the world’s second most climate-vulnerable country, despite its minimal greenhouse gas emissions contribution.

1. Syria

While many people know that Syria has been going through a brutal civil war for more than a decade now, not many are aware of its particularly-high vulnerability to climate change. The country has been hit hard by extreme weather events throughout this time, like its record-low rain season in 2021, leading to decreased water flow into rivers like the Euphrates. 

These climate disasters have had a high impact on agricultural communities and pastoralists across the country, as they heavily rely on water and vegetation for livelihood. The effects are made worse by the ongoing civil conflict, with damaged infrastructure and displacement of people in vast parts of the country exacerbating the problem. Because of the situation, many Syrian families have been pushed deeper into poverty in the last few years, as even basic commodities like food, water, and shelter have become scarce across the region.

Clearly, the population boom of 4.5 billion people was the wake-up call that the global community needed. After decade-long “baby booms” in which having a large family was seen as one of the ultimate signs of success, people began to realize in the 1990s that this rapid population growth might become a problem.

By the end of the 20th century, the world population had reached a whopping 6.1 billion, a far cry from the 1.6 billion people who inhabited the Earth at the beginning of the 20th century. Fears spread about a population too large to be sustained, leading countries to rethink antiabortion laws and drastically reduce the price of contraceptives.

Although this tactic worked for countries like the United Kingdom, some nations utterly failed to control their exponentially rising birthrates. Still others succeeded far too well.

Whether population growth or decline is the problem, countries have tried some pretty odd things to control birthrates. But these 10 ways are among the absolute strangest.

10 ‘Do It For Denmark’ Campaign

With a 0.4 percent population growth rate and a birthrate of 1.73 children per woman, Denmark’s population was in some serious trouble back in 2014 (and still is). With a rapidly aging population and a birthrate that wasn’t high enough to replace the current population, Denmark was spiraling uncontrollably toward a population decline and a labor crisis—something that terrifies all governments. But perhaps even more concerned than the government was Danish travel agency Spies Rejser, which claimed that a declining Danish population would mean fewer Danish travelers and thus, less business for them.

But the creative employees at Spies Rejser weren’t content to just sit around and worry. Instead, the company released a surprisingly bold, somewhat scandalous commercial campaign aimed at adults, with the goal to get couples to have more children. It even had a catchy slogan: “Do it for Denmark!”

The bold commercial started out by asking a shocking question—“Can sex save Denmark’s future?”—before letting a picture of a solemn elderly couple fill the screen, describing Denmark’s population problem, and sharing a video clip of a young adult girl visiting the hotel in which she was conceived.

As viewers watched a young woman try on lingerie and then gallavant with her boyfriend around Paris, the voice of the commercial stated that Danes have 46 percent more sex when on vacation, leading to 10 percent of all Danish babies being conceived during a holiday. Near the end of the video, Danes were encouraged to take a romantic vacation and, to sweeten the deal, use the “ovulation discount” when booking through Spies Rejser to “get it on.”

If you could prove that you conceived a child while on vacation, Spies promised to reward parents with three years of baby supplies and a kid-friendly vacation. It was a hard offer to pass up, the commercial pushed, especially when “all the fun is in the participation.”

9 Hate Taxes? Have A Baby In Romania!

Facing population growth that was close to zero in the late 1960s, Romania banned abortion and contraceptives, made divorce almost impossible, and began imposing a tax burden on childless families. Married or single, childless men and women over age 25 were subject to increased taxes that could amount to 20 percent of their total income.

Police were stationed in hospitals to ensure that no abortions took place, and women were even subjected to monthly gynecological exams to detect and preserve pregnancies. At the same time, childless couples over age 25 were interrogated about their sex lives.

On the other hand, Romania offered “family allowances” paid by the state, which increased each time a child was born. Families with more than three children had their income taxes slashed by 30 percent. The campaign proved to be disastrous, resulting in hundreds of thousands of children being abandoned at birth and put into orphanages.

8 Have A Kid, Be A Heroine

Convinced that the way to become a world superpower was to boast a humongous workforce, Soviet Russia took to branding mothers as heroines to incite a baby boom. Mothers who bore and raised at least five children were given the honorable title of “Mother Heroine” and awarded the Soviet Motherhood Medal, established in 1944.

A Second Class Medal was awarded to mothers who bore five children, provided that the youngest child reached one year old and all the others were still alive. Approximately eight million of these brass medals were issued, double that of the silver First Class Medal, which was awarded to the heroine who birthed six or more children and brought them up. Though medals were highly coveted during the 20th century, you can buy them for cheap now on eBay if you so desire.

7 Sex Breaks In South Korea

After the birthrate in South Korea plummeted to one of the lowest in the developed world, around 1.2 children per woman, the government took it upon itself to get people interested in becoming parents again by introducing “Family Day.” On the third Wednesday of every month, government offices now close early at 7:00 PM, encouraging their employees to go home and spend quality time with their families—and make bigger ones.

South Korean officials hoped that the reduced workday would “help staff get dedicated to childbirth and upbringing.” Unfortunately, the country didn’t see any noticeable increase in births accredited to ‘Family Day.” But when your birthrate is lower than the elderly nation that is Japan, every little bit helps.

6 Sterilization ‘Camps’ In India

Considered by some as the darkest time in India’s history, 1975 saw the suspension of democratic rights and violations of human dignity by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who instituted a 21-month mass sterilization program. Although democratic rights have been restored, sterilization continues to be India’s biggest weapon to combat rapid population growth.

Women are persuaded to be voluntarily sterilized through cash rewards. Those who don’t accept the money are forcibly sterilized. Other consequences are also meted out by the government for having a large family, such as being prevented from owning a gun or holding public office.

Sterilization “camps” are among the most controversial practices. In one camp at an abandoned hospital in a rural part of India, 83 women were sterilized in five hours by a single doctor who was said to have dipped his equipment only briefly in disinfectant.

5 Mentos: Working To Increase Birthrates

Panicking over a birthrate that was less than one child per woman, the government of Singapore partnered with Mentos in 2012 to create the “National Night” campaign in which a three-minute Mentos commercial encouraged babymaking through a rap about “doing your civic duty.”

The video started out with a rap about not watching fireworks and “[making] ’em instead.” Then it moved on to the chorus in which a singer croons that it’s “National Night,” encouraging viewers with words like “let’s make Singapore’s birthrate spike.” The video ends with couples being encouraged to “get your National Night on” and let their “patriotism explode.”

Whether it worked has yet to be determined. But one thing is sure: Singapore is the first (and probably only) country to associate mints with sex.

4 Robot Babies In Japan

Apparently, the one demographer who claimed that the Japanese would be extinct in 1,000 years got to the Japanese government. After a period of ignoring what was obviously a growing population crisis, Japanese officials are finally working to increase the birthrate—and they are doing so through robot babies.

Japanese students at the University of Tsukuba created a robot baby who sniffles, cries, giggles, and sneezes just like a human baby. Adults are encouraged to view and play with the robot baby. The ultimate goal is to spark a yearning for this kind of interaction with a real baby in the viewer’s own life, providing the motivation that the Japanese need to conceive.

3 Secretly Sterilizing Women In Uzbekistan

Despite the culture of Uzbekistan, which views having a large family as the definition of success, the government seems to be concerned with the 2.53 births per woman. So concerned, in fact, that the government ran a secret campaign to sterilize women without their knowledge or consent.

From 2010–2012, women were sterilized without their knowledge or consent in the hospital or doctor’s office after having their second child. Anonymous testimonies from patients and doctors have been collected, revealing that doctors are given quotas on how many women to sterilize each month. The pressure to sterilize girls is especially high in rural areas, where doctors are forced to sterilize up to eight girls per week.

2 Lebensborn In Nazi Germany

Although Nazi propaganda encouraging German mothers to bear as many children as possible to provide for the German army is relatively well-known, a more secret program was uncovered in the 21st century. Called Lebensborn, the program aimed to enlarge and perpetuate Aryan characteristics and the Aryan race.

Pregnant women secretly gave birth in clinics scattered about Germany and were cared for by doctors and nurses as long as they possessed the Aryan physicality of light hair and eyes. The goal of the program was to “further the Aryan race [by] whatever means were available,” a source reported.

1 Need A New Car? Pregnancy Will Take Care Of That!

Though the Soviet era in Russia spiked the birthrate, the deplorable conditions of Soviet Russia raised the death rate to an equally high level, leaving the country with a miniscule population of youth after the Soviet collapse in the late 20th century. Determined to increase their population of young people, the Russian government declared in 2007 that September 12 would be the National Day of Conception.

The national holiday, which gives couples the day off work, was created in hopes that couples would use their free time to breed (also known as “doing their civic duty”). To up the ante, women who conceived on September 12 and gave birth on June 12 (Russia Day) were eligible to win money, cars, or appliances like a new refrigerator.

In 2007, the holiday proved successful as the birthrate of the Russian region increased by 4.5 percent. After all, who would pass up the chance for a free car?

High school student Aria doubles as a freelance writer and babysitter to pay for her ambitious travel plans and (hopefully) college tuition.

[WARNING: This list contains disturbing images.] The Handmaid’s Tale – the book and the show – has helped return authoritarianism and women’s rights to the public stage, as well as influencing some pretty weird protest attire around the world. It portrays a fictional world named “Gilead” technologically similar to ours, but due to past events, it is now run by a totalitarian theocratic government. Women are subdued and divided among various classes, including the ‘Handmaids’, whose sole purpose is to bear kids for infertile couples.

SEE ALSO: 10 Horrific Acts That Are Legal In Some Countries

The 1985 novel was inspired by many events in history, including the rise of radical Islam in Iran and other parts of the Middle East around that time, persecution of witches in the 17th century, and the resurgence of the Christian right in various parts of the United States in the ’70s and ’80s.

Surprisingly, a lot of that social commentary is still quite relevant today. Many parts of the modern world are as bad – and on occasion much worse – than the fictional world depicted in the show. Here are ten such places.

10 Republic of El Salvador

Lately it’s the United States in the news for its restrictions on abortion laws, though it’s far from being the worst-case scenario. Even if there are some states trying their best to include cases of rape and incest in the ban, it’s still far from becoming a widespread reality.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case in many countries around the world, the most restrictive of them being El Salvador. There has been a total ban on abortion since 1998 without any exceptions, as well as restricted access to contraceptives. Women are regularly sent to jail for homicide charges in cases of abortion, sometimes even in cases of miscarriage.

El Salvador is also one of the worst countries in the world for gender violence. According to some reports, around sixty seven percent of women in El Salvador have experienced violence of some kind.^[1]

9 Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo has been going through near-consistent conflict since the Rwandan genocide. While the war among the neighboring nations is largely over, many active rebel groups exist in the region. Because of ethnic tensions, many of those groups actively target rival civilian populations.

The primary target of many of those pogroms are women, who have – owing to the genocidal nature of the conflict—gone through violence ever since the conflict first broke out. Aid workers regularly report cases of forced pregnancies, intentional spreading of STDs, and widespread rape.

The fighters aren’t the only culprits, however. Cases of sexual violence in DR Congo are generally on the rise, too, perpetrated by regular civilians. The country’s lax legal system and ongoing conflict make the situation even more dire for civilians, especially women.^[2]

8 Islamic Republic of Iran

The Islamic Revolution in Iran and how it affected women’s rights in the post-revolution era massively influenced the novel, as Atwood would have been in the process of working on it when it was happening. Overnight, Iran turned into a theocratic state based on Islamic law. Many freedoms people took for granted were now taken away, though the strictest of the new laws were imposed on women.

For one, capital punishment by stoning was now a prescribed punishment for adultery by law. Scores of people – mostly women – were executed that way till the Iranian authorities decided that maybe it was too much. While it’s no longer recommended by the country’s laws, it remains a possible method of execution in the books. Sexual violence against women is also a big problem in Iran, which is made worse by laws that overwhelmingly favor the male perpetrators.

Iran is also a peculiar country in the way that it also has a growing section of activists pushing back against its most restrictive laws, unlike most other countries on this list. Unfortunately, it remains a totalitarian state, and many of those activists are at risk of being arrested or even tortured.^[3]

7 Islamic Republic of Pakistan

Pakistan is usually grouped among the other conflict-ridden Middle Eastern countries in popular imagination, though things are quite different there. It’s actually a functioning democracy, with a culture that’s more South Asian than near or middle Eastern.

However, conditions for civilians in many parts of Pakistan – especially for women – are bad. Even if the laws exist to deal with cases of sexual violence, deeply patriarchal attitudes and a lack of governance in many of its border regions make it rather difficult to live there. Honor killings are a regular part of many rural regions in the country, and sexual violence is rampant-yet-underreported. While women have the right to vote, Pakistan has the lowest female participation in elections across the world.

While none of its other South Asian counterparts – India and Bangladesh – have a particularly stellar record on women’s rights, Pakistan is in an especially terrible situation. A bad economy, near-consistent conflict in the north-western regions, lack of governance across big parts of its territory and rise of radical Islamism in its rural areas have made it one of the worst countries for women.

It’s not all bad, though, as there’s also a growing section of activists and NGOs willing to work for change, particularly in its more urban areas. The systematic patriarchy and dysfunctional legal system, however, make it a rather uphill battle.^[4]

6 Malaysia

Malaysia comes across as one of those south-east Asian countries with awesome beaches and a thriving nightlife, and it absolutely is! For the travelers, Malaysia can indeed be quite a destination to check off your bucket list. Unfortunately, it’s also kind of an authoritarian state for its Muslim residents, with overly restrictive laws most of us wouldn’t even have heard of.

In its more Islamic areas, you can’t miss the Friday prayers three weeks in a row, and a violation would send you to jail for six months. Drinking alcohol is punished using a variety of methods depending on the seriousness of the crime, which we’re just assuming is the degree of how drunk the person was. They still have caning as a punishment, and unsurprisingly, many of the caning victims end up being women (two women were caned for making out in a car in 2018).^[5]

5 Federative Republic of Brazil

When the average person thinks about Brazil, they imagine party buses and all-night beach festivals. Those who’ve seen their share of the Internet (and Brazilians, of course), know that it’s also one of the most crime-ridden countries in the world. Many of its cities feature on the list of the most violent cities, with violence only growing in recent times.

There’s also a widespread problem of crime against women. We’re not just talking about domestic violence and rape – though there’s quite a bit of that, too – but outright murders in broad daylight. According to a Guardian report, four women were killed every day in 2019 at the time of the report. Most of those cases graduate from domestic violence, and a lax legal system and lack of redressal by local authorities make it even worse for the victims.^[6]

4 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is like one of the who’s who of repressing women’s rights. If there was a hall of fame for not letting women do what they want, Saudi Arabia would have a special section dedicated to it. While some recent news stories (like women being ‘allowed’ to drive) point towards change, the general attitude towards women in the religious monarchy remains repressive.

While many of the more regressive laws – like women above 21 not being allowed to leave the house unaccompanied by a male – have been abolished, men still have a lot of legal avenues to just do whatever they want anyway. Women still have little agency in the eyes of the law, and have to go through a lot of hurdles to make their cases heard. Sexual violence in the country may not just go unpunished, but the victims may just be accused of adultery according to Islamic law and put to the sword. And yes, to the literal sword, as beheading remains the most popular method of execution in the country with the highest rate of executions in the world.^[7]

3 Federal Republic of Somalia

Somalia is one of those countries we seldom hear about. In the middle of a civil war ongoing since (at least) the 80s, it’s going through every conceivable human rights crisis you can think of. From widespread disease outbreaks to wartime violence to apparently pirates, there’s simply too much to even keep track of.

To say that conditions in Somalia are similar to the Handmaid’s Tale would be an understatement, as it’s probably much worse. It’s one of the countries still big on FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) – or female circumcision – and many cases don’t even get reported. There’s consistent threat of sexual violence in many parts of the country. If that wasn’t enough, getting stoned to death was a possibility till surprisingly recently, too.

The situation is made even worse by the ongoing conflict, as there’s no central authority in many parts of the country.^[8]

2 Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

Afghanistan has been a battleground for wars it had nothing to do with for quite some time now. Regardless, it has also been a tribalistic society with separate clans that like to do their own thing, even if many attempts to unify it have been made. Many of its regions – especially the ones down south – are still under Taliban’s control.

Afghanistan has also seen some of the most authoritative governments in recent history, like when Taliban ruled over almost all of the country between 1996 – 2001. Public beheadings and stonings were commonplace, and women had to adhere to a strict code of conduct in their public as well as private lives. It wasn’t just women; basic liberties were curtailed for almost everyone.

While most of that is gone now – as Afghanistan has a central government in place – conflict is still ongoing in many of its regions, and sexual violence in many of those areas remains widespread. Taliban still holds some territory and is actively fighting against the government, so that era may not be completely behind us yet.^[9]

1 Republic of the Sudan

Sudan was, until recently, ruled by Omar al-Bashir – an authoritarian ruler who was in power for close to 30 years. A hardcore believer in violence, Bashir’s rule was marked by violent reprisals of political and religious opponents, mass rape and pillage of civilian areas by the army and sectarian violence. It was overthrown in a massive rebellion with the army’s support, though things haven’t been better for the people.

While the situation was much worse during Bashir’s rule—women could be taken to the cops if someone found their clothes too enticing—targeted sexual violence is still commonplace in many parts of the country. Rape is often used as a tool to suppress local populations, and the violence is only getting worse. There’s, of course, the usual getting stoned to death for adultery, too.

While there is a military government, it’s accused of human rights abuses of its own, and doesn’t hold much sway in vast swathes of the country. Sudan is still very much in the middle of conflict, as many parts of the country are held by many different actors.^[10]

About The Author: You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked (www.cracked.com/members/RudeRidingRomeo/) and Screen Rant (https://screenrant.com/author/hshar/), or get in touch with him for writing gigs ([email protected]).