Marcus Kane

Colombia sits at a corner of the world where the Andes, the Amazon, and two oceans collide. The country that comes out of that collision is hard to summarize.

China has been continuously writing its own story for roughly 5,000 years. The numbers behind that staying power are wilder than most people realize.

Chile stretches over 4,300 kilometers north to south and just 177 kilometers wide on average. That's barely the start of what makes the country worth a closer look.

Chad sits at the crossroads of the Sahara and the Sahel, holds a shrinking lake that once rivaled the Caspian Sea, and speaks more than a hundred languages.

The Central African Republic sits exactly where its name says, holds one of the world's biggest protected rainforests, and runs on a Bantu language almost everyone speaks.

Canada has more lakes than the rest of the planet put together, runs on two official languages, and has a coastline so long no one has ever measured it the same way twice.

Cameroon packs almost every African landscape into one country, runs on two colonial languages at once, and has a coastal volcano that still erupts.

Cambodia is a small country with the largest religious monument on the planet, a lake that runs backward, and a national identity stitched into its flag.

Cabo Verde is ten volcanic islands off the coast of West Africa, with a Creole culture, an active volcano, and a music tradition that conquered the world.

Burundi is one of Africa's smallest countries, home to a contested source of the Nile, sacred drums recognized by UNESCO, and a coffee crop most people have never tasted.

Burkina Faso renamed itself to mean "land of upright people," hosts Africa's biggest film festival, and builds mosques out of mud that have stood for centuries.

Bulgaria invented the alphabet most of Eastern Europe still uses, grows most of the world's rose oil, and sits on gold older than the pyramids.