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“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe

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The world is wonderfully diverse. So many different countries and so many different cultures. Traveling can broaden our horizons, of course, but some things and experiences can still remain a mystery. That's why it's always interesting to hear from the locals: what they recommend, what they advise to avoid, and what fascinating facts we should know about their native place.

Someone was curious to know more about the latter, so they asked: "What are facts about your country, which foreigners do not usually know about?" People from all around the world started sharing their countries' wonderful secrets. From national animals to lesser-known achievements, all kinds of interesting facts came to light.

What about you, Pandas? Do you happen to know any strange facts about your homeland that you think foreigners should know, too? Let us know in the comments if you do!

This post may include affiliate links.

#1

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe As a Canadian, I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT APPROACH THE GEESE IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE.

Rorschach_22 , Ashleigh Bennett/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

313points

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#2

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe French here.

Parisian don't hate you in particular.

They hate everyone.

They hate each other.

And most of them are not even born in Paris in the first place.

madeleine-de-prout , Chad Davis/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

274points

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#3

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Scotland: National animal is the unicorn. Not joking.

sodsto , Staffan Vilcans/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

264points

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#4

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Brazil: We have the biggest japanese community outside Japan.

fourangers , Kyle Lui/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

248points

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#5

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe The Italian national animal is the wolf, yes, but it's usually not specified that it's the *female* wolf.

AlbiTuri05 , Tambako The Jagua/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

243points

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#6

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe The United States was formed by a bunch of aristocrats that didn’t want to pay their taxes.

ZackInKC , 401(K) 2012/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

232points

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#7

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Mexico is not yellow, and I'm tired of Hollywood always making Mexico yellow in their movies.

Seya_Ayanami , Halle Stoutzenberger/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

230points

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#8

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe One fact not even people who were born and raised know about: During World War 2 the Netherlands had one of the worst survival rates for Jews in all of the German occupied territories; only 5,000 out 105,000 survived the war. The extensive Dutch civil administration is often cited as a cause of this; once German police had access to the public records they knew exactly who was Jewish, and where they lived. Once they had that information, it was easy for them to target and deport any Jewish people living in the Netherlands.

While that is true, what is not often talked about is how much of the work tracking down Jewish people was done by Dutch people, many of whom benefitted financially from their actions. Police and civil servants got paid bonuses if they found Jews in hiding, notaries public would make a hefty commission on the sale of confiscated Jewish properties, even the national rail company got their cut charging the Germans for use of their trains to transport captured Jews to concentration camps.

Education about this aspect of the German occupation has gotten much better over the past ten years or so, but when I was a kid we were taught none of this. We only heard about the how the heroic resistance would oppose the Germans and try to hide Jewish people, when in reality there were more collaborators than there were ever members of the resistance.

ConstableBlimeyChips , crash71100/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

225points

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#9

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe I feel like too few people are really prepared for how fast the Australian sun will burn them when they get off the plane...

If your SPF isn't 50+ it might as well go in the bin.

Retirement in Australia is basically skin cancer treatments.

Slip slip slap people.

blahblahrasputan , Phil Kates/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

216points

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#10

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe New Zealand is colder than people expect.

pgraczer , Pedro Szekely/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

205points

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#11

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Iceland does not have a Mcdonalds. Not sure if this is a well known fact or not but I get asked by trourists sometimes.

BlueBabyCat666 , Stock Catalog/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

186points

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#12

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe 🇮🇪

1. We're not all drunk alcoholics.
2. We're not British.
3. There is more food and drink in 🇮🇪 than your stereotypes of potatoes, Guinness.
4. We don't like it when you claim your Irish through a long line of relatives.
5. The people here are not leprechauns. Some are just small or ginger.

Complex-Breadfruit88 , Iain/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

185points

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#13

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Most of the haggis sold for meat are farmed in Wales. Wild scottish haggis are practically extinct.

ilikejamtoo Report

Final score:

181points

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#14

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe As a Norwegian, Norway likes the "we are forward thinking and accept all people" publicity, but in reality, Norway is incredibly racist and xenophobic.

A lot of Norwegians will get angry if you point it out too.

Wappening , Patrick Nouhailler/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

166points

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#15

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Many people in the US do not carry firearms.

OldSamSays , Cristian Ramírez/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

165points

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#16

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe In World War II Canada interned Japanese people.

Many people don't know this but what is now Strathcona and East Vancouver used to be Japantown which was a bustling Japanese community. They were taken from their homes and businesses. In fact if you visit some of the buildings in Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition (PNE), you're visiting the very buildings they slept in; hundreds of cots, lined up with no privacy.

ToasterOven31 , Ryutaro Tsukata/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

154points

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#17

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Amsterdam is not the only place in the Netherlands.

gfxdaniel , _ Harvey/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

153points

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#18

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe pierogi is already plural , no knead to call them pierogies.

karol256 , Karolina Grabowska/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

146points

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#19

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Our elderly care is abysmal. Nursing homes in US costs $8-15k a month and most insurance companies don't cover it. Don't be old, kids!

theassassintherapist , Matthias Zomer/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

137points

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#20

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Germany: The autobahn is just a mundane part of everyday life many of us don't really think about, and speed limits do exist.

blacka-var , conticium/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

136points

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#21

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe There are actually more than 3 Pyramids in Egypt.

RevelationDelta , David McEachan/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

131points

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#22

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Brazil actually have strong laws against crime. We are just incapable of enforcing them. I think most Brazilians don't know this either.

Gentle_Capybara , Erik Cooper/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

130points

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#23

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Canada is a well known place for animation. A lot of US studios farm out work here and it's subsidized by the provincial governments. The standards for children's animation is high and is easily exportable to other countries.

1_art_please , Domenico Convertini/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

121points

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#24

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Oktober fest does not start in October.

Potential-Friend-133 , 5chw4r7z/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

112points

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#25

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe When it comes to Dubai, 99% of people seem to be of the opinion that Dubai has no culture and little history.

Not so. When i moved there in the 80s (before it became a behemoth), the culture was very much evident.

Fishing from dhous, trading along the river, ancient traditions such as camel racing, falconry and, most impressively, creating successful nomadic communities that thrived for thousands of years in some of the most desolate areas on the globe.

And then oil was discovered.

Wonderful-Section971 , Aleksandar Pasaric/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

107points

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#26

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Good Filipino hospitality only works for foreigners. Towards fellow countrymen, most Filipinos are pretty selfish.

wickedhobbitses , Rene Sibulangcal/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

99points

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#27

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Australia - has 15 ski resorts, though by international standards they're pretty lame...and expensive.

Gregorygherkins , Roderick Eime/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

81points

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#28

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Rick and morty is animated in ireland.

like... everything about that seems wrong.

ee3k , Green Portal Productions Report

Final score:

81points

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#29

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe Singapore has entire clusters of crammed foreign worker housing out in the fringes of the city in industrial areas, at the edge of forests, and along the sea.

I_love_pillows , Fabio Achilli / Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

79points

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#30

“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe South Africa, First human heart transplant took place here. Also, the Kreepy Krauly and cat's eyes were invented here.

Saffer13 , Alex Healing/Flickr (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

72points

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Note: this post originally had 40 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.

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Kornelija Viečaitė

Hi there, fellow pandas! As a person (over)educated both in social sciences and literature, I'm most interested in how we connect and behave online (and sometimes in real life too.) The human experience is weird, so I try my best to put its peculiarities in writing. As a person who grew up chronically online, I now try to marry two sides of myself: the one who knows too much about MySpace, and the one who can't settle and needs to see every corner of the world.

Hi there, fellow pandas! As a person (over)educated both in social sciences and literature, I'm most interested in how we connect and behave online (and sometimes in real life too.) The human experience is weird, so I try my best to put its peculiarities in writing. As a person who grew up chronically online, I now try to marry two sides of myself: the one who knows too much about MySpace, and the one who can't settle and needs to see every corner of the world.

Ilona Baliūnaitė

I'm a Visual Editor at Bored Panda since 2017. I've searched through a multitude of images to create over 2000 diverse posts on a wide range of topics. I love memes, funny, and cute stuff, but I'm also into social issues topics. Despite my background in communication, my heart belongs to visual media, especially photography. When I'm not at my desk, you're likely to find me in the streets with my camera, checking out cool exhibitions, watching a movie at the cinema or just chilling with a coffee in a cozy place

I'm a Visual Editor at Bored Panda since 2017. I've searched through a multitude of images to create over 2000 diverse posts on a wide range of topics. I love memes, funny, and cute stuff, but I'm also into social issues topics. Despite my background in communication, my heart belongs to visual media, especially photography. When I'm not at my desk, you're likely to find me in the streets with my camera, checking out cool exhibitions, watching a movie at the cinema or just chilling with a coffee in a cozy place

What are facts about your country, which foreigners do no usually know about?

BravePanda 6 months ago

Yay BP. Learned some new things from this list, and it wasn't repeating frequently featured facts.

26points

Corvus 6 months ago

Yeah, it was a nice surprise. I was expecting the see the inevitable "people don't get how just huge the USA is", but it didn't appear this time.

17points

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Emma S 6 months ago (edited)

The UK has a wide range of accents and dialects. Considering its small area size people are often suprised as how diverse the UK sounds. Usually when non Brits talk about a 'British' accent they are thinking of the recieved pronunciation accent that you hear many famous British people speaking in the media, such as the Royal Family, David Attenborough, Benedict Cumberbatch, Judi Dench, Jeremy Irons etc. Most of the UK does not speak with a RP accent as it's usually a sign of a private school education, which very few Brits have had given the cost of private schools. (To clear up another British sterotype I've come across: less than 1% of us went to boarding school). I think it's often taught at drama schools such as RADA and the Guildhall as well which is why so many British actors speak it. Scouse, Brummie, Geordie, Mancunaian, Cockney, Yorkshire to name just a few, all sound very different from each other and that's just in England. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have several different accents of their own as well. They are all British accents. If you tell us you love the British accent, we'll ask you which one?

18points

UKGrandad 6 months ago

To further complicate things, accents can differ in a very small distance, within cities and towns, and even from village to village, for example. Sadly, regional and local accents are becoming less distinct because of the influence of media and increased social mobility.

10points

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Fairytails From Other Worlds 6 months ago

I love British accents. All of them. Lived in London for a while and tried to learn as many as possible so every week different accent/dialect. Made my British colleagues amused. Also tried to embrace Cockney rhyming slang, which I still find hilarious.

2points

BravePanda 6 months ago

I am only slightly embarrassed to say this but Love Island has incredible diversity of UK accents every season. Because of the nature of the show, ie: repetitive conversations from all point of views, it's really interesting to hear how varied a few mutual thoughts can be in lots of accents. Even people from the same region!

1point

Bec 6 months ago

When the Beatles came to the US they were asked why they didn't sound British - those Liverpool accents were pretty close to American accents

0points

Vix Spiderthrust 6 months ago

When I was doing English Language A-level we were taught that Britain has twenty-four basic accents. For comparison, the USA has five. Obviously, the reason the USA has comparatively few is because it grew up alongside the railway and telecommunication, so there was more mixing of speech

0points

Agfox 6 months ago

Another Australian fact: the world's first flight recorder or 'black box' was invented by an Australian, David Warren, in 1958

17points

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BravePanda 6 months ago

Yay BP. Learned some new things from this list, and it wasn't repeating frequently featured facts.

26points

Corvus 6 months ago

Yeah, it was a nice surprise. I was expecting the see the inevitable "people don't get how just huge the USA is", but it didn't appear this time.

17points

Load More Replies...

Emma S 6 months ago (edited)

The UK has a wide range of accents and dialects. Considering its small area size people are often suprised as how diverse the UK sounds. Usually when non Brits talk about a 'British' accent they are thinking of the recieved pronunciation accent that you hear many famous British people speaking in the media, such as the Royal Family, David Attenborough, Benedict Cumberbatch, Judi Dench, Jeremy Irons etc. Most of the UK does not speak with a RP accent as it's usually a sign of a private school education, which very few Brits have had given the cost of private schools. (To clear up another British sterotype I've come across: less than 1% of us went to boarding school). I think it's often taught at drama schools such as RADA and the Guildhall as well which is why so many British actors speak it. Scouse, Brummie, Geordie, Mancunaian, Cockney, Yorkshire to name just a few, all sound very different from each other and that's just in England. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have several different accents of their own as well. They are all British accents. If you tell us you love the British accent, we'll ask you which one?

18points

UKGrandad 6 months ago

To further complicate things, accents can differ in a very small distance, within cities and towns, and even from village to village, for example. Sadly, regional and local accents are becoming less distinct because of the influence of media and increased social mobility.

10points

Load More Replies...

Fairytails From Other Worlds 6 months ago

I love British accents. All of them. Lived in London for a while and tried to learn as many as possible so every week different accent/dialect. Made my British colleagues amused. Also tried to embrace Cockney rhyming slang, which I still find hilarious.

2points

BravePanda 6 months ago

I am only slightly embarrassed to say this but Love Island has incredible diversity of UK accents every season. Because of the nature of the show, ie: repetitive conversations from all point of views, it's really interesting to hear how varied a few mutual thoughts can be in lots of accents. Even people from the same region!

1point

Bec 6 months ago

When the Beatles came to the US they were asked why they didn't sound British - those Liverpool accents were pretty close to American accents

0points

Vix Spiderthrust 6 months ago

When I was doing English Language A-level we were taught that Britain has twenty-four basic accents. For comparison, the USA has five. Obviously, the reason the USA has comparatively few is because it grew up alongside the railway and telecommunication, so there was more mixing of speech

0points

Agfox 6 months ago

Another Australian fact: the world's first flight recorder or 'black box' was invented by an Australian, David Warren, in 1958

17points

Load More Comments

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