Life can be restrictive sometimes. Sure, we have the freedom to pursue life and happiness but only within reason. If your happiness requires you to drive a tank naked while high on LSD, all that liberty starts to dry up.

Fortunately, there are some 196 countries in this world, all with their own values and sets of laws. No matter what you want to do, there’s somewhere in the world filled with people who think it’s perfectly fine.

10Walk Around Naked
Spain

Spain has a reputation for nude beaches. Citizens and tourists from around the world scurry off to one of Spain’s many clothing-optional beaches, eager to enter the one place where they can cast off those constricting clothes without any pesky police telling them to cover up.

Most people don’t realize, though, that you don’t actually have to go to a nude beach. In Spain, you can legally be naked in any public place you want.

Since 1978, the constitution of Spain has not only guaranteed its people permission to walk around naked—it’s made it an inalienable human right. There have been attempts to change the law in the past, but none have gone through.

9Take Every Drug On Earth
Portugal

Portugal has decriminalized every single drug in existence. This isn’t exactly the same as making it legal—if you’re caught with drugs, you could still be sent to a counsellor. You can’t go to prison, though, for having a personal stash of anything, whether you’re puffing marijuana or freebasing cocaine.

Portugal’s policy seems to work. Before decriminalization, they had a major problem with hard drugs—one in every 100 people were addicted to heroin. Within four years of decriminalizing drugs, drug-induced deaths went down nearly 90 percent, and HIV rates plummeted.

8Attach A Flamethrower To Your Car
South Africa

In South Africa, you can buy a product called the “Blaster”—a flamethrower that shoots out 20 meters (65 ft) of fire, custom designed to be fitted onto your car. The blast sends out a burst of flames on both sides of your vehicle and, according to ads, doesn’t damage your paint. It’s also completely legal.

At its worst, South Africa was getting about 13,000 carjackings each year, and so the country legally permits you to kill anyone trying to break into your car. The inventor, though, insists that it probably won’t actually kill anyone—it would just blind them.

The Blaster came out in 1998 and has since been taken off the market, but that’s not because it’s illegal. There just wasn’t enough demand. Anyone determined enough could probably still pick one up secondhand—or even start an automotive flamethrower company of their own.

7Marry A Dog
India

In India, you can legally marry any animal you want. You aren’t limited to dogs—they just seem to be the most popular choice.

One man in New Delhi explained the process: As a child, he stoned and hanged two dogs, and he was convinced the illnesses he had later in life were punishments for his cruelty. He visited a local astrologer about it, who told him he had only had one way to remove his curse—he had to marry a dog.

The man’s family approved. They even helped him pick out the best dog to be his bride. Then they threw a lavish wedding ceremony, complete with a feast, to celebrate the eternal union of man and dog.

6Steal Art
The Netherlands

If you steal a priceless piece of artwork in The Netherlands, you needn’t resort to the black market to resell it. As long you can muster up a little patience, your stolen artwork will become legally yours. After 20 years, the statute of limitations for property theft is up, and they deal with that by just making the stolen property legally belong to whoever happens to have it.

It’s a little bit trickier if you steal from a public collection or a painting classified as part of their cultural heritage. For those major pieces, you have to wait 30 years before you’re off the hook. Still, it’s pretty doable. The police give art theft a low priority, so if you can hide a Rembrandt in your attic for a few decades, it’ll be yours.

5Get A Government Employee To Help You Inject Heroin
Canada

If you look for it in downtown Vancouver, you’ll find InSite, a government building where addicts can legally inject heroin with the help of a medical professional.

You have to bring your own drugs to enter, but there’s no risk of arrest for visiting, and you can give the people there a fake name. Inside, you’ll find 12 injection booths, each equipped with a clean needle and sterile equipment. The medical staff will even help you find the right vein. Mostly, though, they stand there and watch you in case you overdose, to make sure you’re doing heroin safely.

The program started because, 20 years ago, Vancouver had the highest HIV rate in the developed world. It’s been a huge success. Some people even come back two or three times a day.

4Sell Your Kidney
Iran

In Iran, people will put up posters around town advertising that they have a kidney for sale. They usually write their blood type and phone number, but some people get a bit more competitive. Some posters are splashed with bright, attention-grabbing colors. Others show off test results that prove their kidney is in good health. Some people even pull down the ads of competitors to make sure that, next time you need a kidney, you notice their poster first.

The practice is definitely controversial, but some claim it’s working wonders for Iran’s health care system. Since Iran opened up a kidney market, donor waiting lists have been completely eliminated.

3Self-Identify As A Dragon
Russia

If you believe hard enough, you can call yourself a dragon anywhere. No one can force you to stop introducing yourself as Smoltar, the Golden-Scaled Dragon of the Dwarven Pass. In most places, though, you can’t force them to accept you as a dragon—except for in Russia.

On a Russian census, you can legally identify yourself as any ethnicity you want, even if it doesn’t exist. Young people often put themselves down as elves and hobbits, and older ones tend to register as Martians. Whatever they write, as far as the Census Bureau is concerned, is accepted as a fact.

In some ways, this has done some good. In southern provinces, several people have used the open space to classify themselves as Coassacks—registering themselves as a real ethnicity that just doesn’t show up as an option.

2Own A Minigun
The United States

Most people already know that Americans have fought for and won the right to carry assault rifles, but you might not realize just how far those rights go. Because, in America, you can even buy a minigun.

Miniguns, which were only ever intended to mow down thousands enemy troops, can fire up to 6,000 rounds per minutes—and you could have one in your own home. A loophole in the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act made it technically legal for American citizens to buy one for home protection.

You need a Class 2 license to get one, and they’re expensive and hard to track down, but anyone who’s determined enough can start protecting their home with a weapon that was built to take on the Viet Cong.

1Drive A Tank
England

Technically, England isn’t the only place you can drive a tank. There are plenty of places in the United States that let customers go on a joy ride in an armored vehicle—some even letting you crush cars or drive through a mobile home.

England, though, takes it one step further—in England, tanks are road legal. You can drive a tank anywhere you want to go, whether you’re on your way to the grocery store or to pick up your kids after school.

You have to deactivate the weapons and have rubber tracks fitted on the wheels, but as long as you do that, you can take your tank anywhere you like. People do it, too. One man has even set up a “Tank Limo” that picks up customers and takes them wherever they want, so teenagers in England can really make an impression at prom.

In the origins of country names, we find all kinds of surprising hidden histories. America, for example, comes directly from the name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci—yet how many people have even heard of him? Sometimes, in light of events since their founding (or “discovery” and naming by colonial powers), national names also conceal a dark and twisted irony.

Here are 10 of the most surprising.

10. Saudi Arabia

Unsurprisingly, Saudi Arabia is named for the people in charge, the characteristically pompous-sounding House of Saud. More surprising, for such a miserably corrupt and repressive regime, is that ‘Saud’ derives from the Arabic sa’d, meaning “happy.” 

Few names could be more ironic for a nation so gutted by oil. Even its founder, Ibn Saud, was horrified by the cultural and moral havoc that oil wealth wreaked.

Today, it’s fair to say the name only applies to his pampered descendants and not to the millions they exploit in order to keep themselves happy or, as they say, sa’d. 

9. Antigua and Barbuda

Before the Spanish arrived with their crazy ideas, the island of Antigua was known locally as Wadadadli. For Christopher Columbus, that just wasn’t old-fashioned enough, and he renamed it for the Church of Santa Maria de la Antigua (“St. Mary of the Ancient”) in Seville. The neighboring island, which, together with Antigua makes up the present-day nation, is thought to have been named Barbuda (“bearded”) on account of the beards of the locals—or, like Barbados, the lichen-covered palm trees. So Antigua and Barbuda basically means “Ancient and Bearded”. 

When the British colonized the islands in the 17th century, the wealthy, slave-owning Codrington family established a sugar plantation and planned to make Barbuda a slave-breeding colony. Both islands remained in British possession until November 1, 1981, when Antigua and Barbuda gained their independence. But, while the black in the flag commemorates ties to Africa, Barbuda’s only town still bears the slaver name Codrington.

8. Namibia

The Namib desert is the oldest in the world, having been arid for at least 55 million years. What little moisture there is to sustain life comes from thick coastal fogs. So it’s little wonder that ‘Namib’ (and ‘Namibia’) come from nama, a word meaning “area where there is nothing.”

The country got its name from Mburumba Kerina, who founded several of its modern institutions. While studying in Indonesia, Kerina was asked by the Indonesian president for the name of his country, which in those days was still the colonial Southwest Africa. “That’s not a name,” said the president, “slaves and dogs are named by their masters” while “free men name themselves.” 

Never mind that Indonesia retains its slave name; the young Kerina was so affected by this conversation that he later renamed his home country. He also renamed himself. His birth name, which he said had been “given by missionaries when [his] rights as a baby were not recognized,” was Eric William Getzen.

7. Nauru

Nauru appears to come from a local (Nauruan) term, anáoero, meaning “I go to the beach.” It’s a nod to the island nation’s once staggering natural beauty. Nowadays, however, given its desolation from strip-mining, leaving Nauruans “living on a narrow ring around a plateau of jagged, spiky, razor-sharp coral and limestone pillars,” its name is grimly mocking.

The story of Nauru’s fall begins in 1798, when it came to the attention of rising capitalist forces. Captain John Fearn, passing on the way to China, was so taken by the friendliness of the locals, the lush greenery, pristine beaches, and warm winds, that he named it Pleasant Island. A century of contact later, however, and Nauruans were gun-toting, heavy-drinking, chain-smoking thugs—such that in 1881, a British beachcomber living there told the British Navy there was nothing of value left “but pigs and coconuts.”

Unfortunately, he was wrong. There was plenty more to exploit. In 1901, when it was found that 80 percent of the island was rich in phosphate of lime, a mining rush began. Over the following decades, the lush green central plateau, along with its precious wildlife, was utterly destroyed. By 1921, when exports were at 200,000 tons a year (all at cut price), it had become a “ghastly tract of land, … its cavernous depths littered with broken coral, abandoned tram tracks, discarded phosphate baskets, and rusted American kerosene tins”. By 1968, when Nauru gained independence, more than 35 million metric tons of phosphate had been mined (enough to fill dump trucks bumper-to-bumper from New York to LA and back again). By now, that figure has reached 80 million (enough to fill dump trucks lined up between New York and Tokyo and back). The island has since been used as a tax haven and a hellish Australian detention center. Recently, the government has been gearing up to extract the last remaining 20 million tons of secondary phosphate reserves.

6. Ethiopia

Until the late 19th century, there was no Ethiopia as it exists today. The lands that comprise it were forcibly conquered in the 19th century and named by the modern nation’s genocidal first “Emperor” Menelik—with permission from Britain’s Queen Victoria. 

Menelik hoped the new name, which he got from the Bible, would give his landgrab historical legitimacy. All it means, though, is “land of the negro”, or “burnt-faced”, in Greek.

It’s a common and controversial misconception that Ethiopia was a renaming of Abyssinia (Habesha in Amharic, from habesh, Arabic for “mongrel”). In fact, the conquered land of Ethiopia extends far beyond the original Abyssinia—which today amounts to more of a northern region or province. To conflate the two is to erase the brutal reality of the country’s formation. Even the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa (meaning “new flower”), lies outside the historical borders of Abyssinia.

5. Kiribati

Despite its exotic spelling and pronunciation (Ki-ri-ba-si), the name for this Pacific island nation comes from nothing more fancy than “Gilbert”. In fact, until 1979, when Kiribati finally regained independence from the similarly deceptively named “Commonwealth”, it was known as the Gilbert Islands. 

The eponymous Gilbert was Captain Thomas Gilbert, who got there in 1788 after dumping the first shipload of convicts in Australia. 

Kiribati is the Gilbertese (yes, even the language was named after him) rendering of his name. Now known as I-Kiribati, the native tongue has 13 sounds—one of which, ‘ti’, is pronounced ‘si’ or ‘see’. Hence, one of the Gilberts, Christmas Island, was renamed Kiritimati (Ki-ri-si-ma-si).

4. Egypt

Although nowadays a modern Islamic country, Egypt’s ancient pagan history lives on its name. By way of Amarna Hikuptah, Greek Aigyptos, and French Egypte, the English name Egypt ultimately derives from Ha(t)-ka-ptah, meaning “temple of the soul (ka) of Ptah.” Interestingly, this is also where we get the word ‘Coptic’, the form of Christianity found in Egypt. 

The ancient name, referring to the creator god Ptah, originally applied only to Memphis—the city where Ptah’s worship was based. It was the Greeks who took the name and applied it to the nation as a whole. The Egyptians themselves knew their land as Kemet, “black country,” in reference to the rich dark soil of the Nile, or Deshret, “red country,” meaning the deserts to either side.

Modern Egyptians, meanwhile, call it Misr, which in Arabic just means “country” or “fortress.” 

3. Cameroon

Cameroon takes its name from the river running through it—the Wouri, which the Portuguese called the Rio dos Camarões, or “River of Prawns” due to the abundance of shrimp in its waters. Unimaginatively, they gave the nearby mountains the same name. In English, the river was the Cameroons River, and the mountains were just the Cameroons. 

When the Germans took over, they applied their version of the word—Kamerun—to the whole of the country. By 1884, the name of the nation was settled, preserving its ignoble origin as little more than the shrimp aisle in the European colonists’ five-finger discount supermarket model of the world. 

Nowadays, however, Cameroon is known for its relatively low levels of fish, restricting the development of fisheries.

2. The Solomon Islands

This Oceanian archipelago comprises almost one thousand islands—only a fraction of which are inhabited, as they have been for 5,000 years. It wasn’t until the 16th century that Europeans first laid eyes on them. And, just as they had in the New World, they immediately set about imposing their childlike fantasies.

Namely, the Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira—the first European to get there—fancied that it must have been the source of King Solomon’s wealth, the origin of the gold for his temple. The one in Jerusalem. 15,000 kilometers away. Why? Because he saw some gold flecks in the river.

Since then, generations of exploitation at the hands of European colonists and missionaries, as well as Japanese and Allied forces in the Second World War, have irrevocably altered traditional ways of life. 95% of the population is now Christian and the Solomons are littered with war wrecks and airstrips. Ironically, there’s only one gold mine—but, according to the government, their economic hopes depend on it.

1. Belize

Belize didn’t get its name until 1973. In early colonial days, this Central American nation was known as the Bay of Honduras, from hondo, Spanish for “deep.” Later, from 1862, it was known as British Honduras. 

The current name derives from the river that flows through the country. But it’s not clear where ‘Belize’ originally came from. It may be from the Maya word balix, meaning “muddy water,” or else belikin, meaning “land facing the sea.” 

A more widely accepted derivation, however, is that ‘Belize’ was originally ‘Wallace’. This was the name of the Scottish buccaneer—Captain Peter Wallace—credited with discovering the mouth of the river and establishing a settlement around it. According to this theory, it was the Spaniards who morphed ‘Wallace’ into ‘Belize’. First, they substituted the W for the more easily pronounced V. Then, because a V sounds like a B in Spanish, ‘Vallis’ over time became ‘Ballis’. Speakers of other languages locally, such as the Maya, also influenced pronunciation until the name finally settled as ‘Belize’.