Marcus Kane

Nepal is the only country on Earth whose flag isn't a rectangle. That's barely the strangest thing about it.

Nauru is barely bigger than the airport that serves it. For a few strange years in the 1970s, it was the richest country per person on Earth.

Namibia is mostly empty in the best possible way. Sand dunes older than dinosaurs, a shipwreck coast, and roughly three people per square kilometer.

Myanmar has two names, more pagodas than you can count, and a quirk on the road that catches every visitor off guard. The country is stranger and older than most maps let on.

Mozambique runs almost the entire eastern edge of southern Africa, speaks Portuguese, and puts a Kalashnikov on its flag. The story behind that is wilder than you'd guess.

Morocco runs from Atlantic surf to Sahara dunes in a single country. The mix of Berber, Arab, and African roots shows up in every meal, market, and mountain town.

A country the size of Connecticut that fits a deep fjord, a black mountain, a thousand-year monastery, and one of the oldest national parks in the Balkans.

A country bigger than Alaska with fewer people than Chicago, where a third of the population still moves with the seasons.

A country smaller than Central Park, with no income tax, more millionaires per square mile than anywhere on Earth, and a royal family older than most European nations. Monaco shouldn't work, and yet.

Micronesia is a country where money used to be quarried, shipped across open ocean, and left sitting in the road. People still own it without ever moving it.

Mexico holds more UNESCO sites than any country in the Americas, speaks 68 languages, and once spent a year without a head of state. The real Mexico is bigger than the brochure.

A volcanic island the size of Rhode Island, with a dead bird on its coat of arms and one of the most multicultural societies on Earth.