“Scottish Haggis Are Practically Extinct”: 30 Interesting Facts About Countries Round The Globe
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!
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As a Canadian, I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT APPROACH THE GEESE IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE.
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.
wrong stereotype : actually parisians don't hate you, they just ignore you !
Scotland: National animal is the unicorn. Not joking.
The Lion and the Unicorn. Lion for England and Unicorn for Scotland. The ages old symbol for the United Kingdom. I may be a Yank but I know a few things.
Brazil: We have the biggest japanese community outside Japan.
The Italian national animal is the wolf, yes, but it's usually not specified that it's the *female* wolf.
The United States was formed by a bunch of aristocrats that didn’t want to pay their taxes.
Yeah, originally the constitution stipulated that only WHITE MALES who owned land were allowed to vote. We have a long tradition of preventing minorities and poor people from having a say in government. It's why we still vote on a Tuesday. Can't make it to the ballot box if you have to work all day. Voter suppression is baked in.
The UK votes on a Thursday. Schools normally get the day off, as many of them are used a polling stations. They are open till something like 10pm, so everybody gets a chance to vote. Oh and we have postal votes for those that can't get to a polling station.
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And the US still has a problem with its puritanical roots showing up in its culture. Huge aversion to sex while glorifying violence, endless money wasted trying to force biblical nonsense in courts schools and government buildings, patrimonial thinking in its politicians, and an intolerance toward anyone that doesn't fit in a tiny mold are some of the things that define the puritans, have existed since the US's founding and continue this day. The wealthy figured out long ago that using religion is the best way to keep the poor in line. Give em someone to hate, show them another group that has it worse than them, and put yourself in leadership positions that govern all eternity and you won't have to worry about the mob coming for you. It is this way of doing things that is at the heart of the conservative vs liberal conflict. And each successive generation's liberals become the next generation's conservatives.
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Get your facts straight. They didn't want to pay taxes to a government in which they had no input.
So they founded a country where people are forced to pay taxes to a government in which they have no input (Puerto Rico).
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Before that, the US was built on piracy. Roanoke was sold to parliament as "colonization", but was, in fact, established as a pirate resupply port so that British privateers could quickly resupply while harassing Spanish ships in the Caribbean.
Piracy and slavery. The Atlantic slave trade was created for British colonists in the Caribbean as the only profitable way to produce sugar. By the way, the privateers you refer to weren't pirates in the sense of lawless thieves. They were government sanctioned raiders playing a role a war between European nations attempting to steal as much of the Americas as they could - you can hardly call the Spanish "innocent victims" in the whole nasty business, what with them shipping stolen silver and gold back across the Atlantic, and the British trying to steal that stolen property from them.
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And wanted to keep their slaves. They could see Britain's abolishment of slavery coming, which happened less than ten years after the death of the author of the Declaration of Independence.
What is never taught in our schools is that the British response to the declaration was - no, cuz also you still aren't listening- slavery needs to be abolished.
Yeah, er, not really. In the 18th century, there were lots of Brits opposed to slavery but plenty who profited from it The UK abolished the slave trade in 1807, slavery itself in 1833 - and that, only by paying off the slave owners, and in stages such that not all slaves were actually properly freed until 1840. The men in power were also the slave owners in many cases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ewart_Gladstone#First_term
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False. It had nothing to do with not wanting to pay their taxes, it had to do with a government breaking a 1720s era treaty with the colonies about taxes and trying to impose illegal taxes in violation of said treaty, which also violated the 1689 Bill of Rights, etc. Very complex legal issues. Also 90% of the taxes affected laborers and farmers, not the rich.
Just like the dude campaigning to run it... the only bills he pays are to not have sex w a port star.
The sad thing is, our kids are not even paying attention in school, enough to even vote properly. Ask a 17 yo girl on the street, and she could not even tell you what the Emancipation Proclamation is and who wrote it!
Not quite... they wanted to pay the right people taxes. The money was being sucked out of the new land.
Well, yes, the land was indeed being sucked dry and the established population of the Americas despised the thieving immigrant colonists for doing so (while also being okay with them in different times and places - it's complicated). Certainly the European colonists were taxed for their exploitation of their stolen land, but no differently to the general population everywhere else under British rule. I'm British: I expect I'm related to both the guilty and the oppressed in that era.
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and it is still run by a bunch of aristocrats who don't want to pay taxes...on the backs of the poor
Not actually aristocrats. Also George's taxes were pretty much British aristocrats taking more than their share from the colonies whom they considered to be their property. It's always a bit more subtle than it seems.
Actually not true. They just wanted voting rights if they were being taxed
How does a bastard, orphan, son of a wh*re and Scotsman… (all I know about American history haha)
Income tax was created by Pitt the Younger"s budget of December 1798, applicable from 1799. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax#United_Kingdom
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yes, this was for the most part, true. but, the colonization of north america was more than just running away from taxes. little did the colonists and their progeny realize that they were only exchanging one kind of tyranny and injustice for another.
The colonization of the Americas was entirely about profit. Nothing else: purely about stealing land and resources and exploiting it for every penny it would yield, driving away and/or killing the indigenous population and working the land with slaves whenever that was expedient. Yes, eventually there were a few tiny groups of religious extremists who went to N America too, but (for example) the Puritans did so because they couldn't impose their rigid views on their native land, what with Britain having tried Puritanism under Cromwell and deciding it didn't much like it.
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Not at all true. The British abolished local government in Massachusetts, and ignored civil rights there. It sent a shockwave through all 13 colonies. The groundswell of popular opinion against the Crown and Parliament is actually pretty astonishing. Of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, 7 lost their fortunes and 5 died in poverty, 10 had their homes destroyed by the British (Thomas Nelson of Virginia spotted his own home in Yorktown for an artillery barrage because Cornwallis was using it as his headquarters), several of them were either imprisoned or tortured themselves or their family members were, and the British tortured Richard Stockton of New Jersey to death.
Umm. There's this modern saying "F*kc around and find out". If you go up against one of the world's great powers and end up suffering horribly what can you expect? The American colonies fought for their independence in the late 18th century. All the educated men involved knew exactly how nasty it was likely to be - the example of the mid 17th century "Wars of the Three Kingdoms" (including the English Civil War in which the king got beheaded; that's a bit of a hint not to annoy the English too much) was known to them all. In that context, losing your forture and/or dying in poverty counts as getting off lightly. By the way, the Brits didn't ignore civil rights in Massachusetts, but did take control and enacted various reprisals in response to several acts of rebellion and treason. Oh, sorry, I meant "heroic and patriotic acts of resistance by heroic patriots". Something like that, anyway - they're freedom fighters not terrorists if they end up winning, am I right?
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And it was founded by a bunch of male slave owners who believed all men are created equal
Founded by a bunch of white men who CLAIMED to believe that all men were created equal, but were obviously a bunch of lying, self-serving slave-owning hypocrites who believed no such thing. And I'm most likely related to some of them.
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What a freakin idiot, who cannot be bothered to do even a basic Google search. Not a single one of the founding fathers was an aristocrat. They were a mixture of landowners and craftspersons. Franklin was a printer, Washington's father was a judge, and Washington was a professional soldier. Thomas Jefferson was a landowner, and John Adams was a from a wealthy farming family. Hamilton was a bastard and he worked as a clerk, while his brother was a carpenter. John Jay came from a wealthy merchant family, descended from Huguenot refugees, and and James Madison came from a family of tobacco growers and merchants. Not a single titled aristocrat among them, and none were even descended from British gentry.
In fact, they were in the USA because they weren't aristocracy. Wealthy, educated men who were not descended from any prominent family had no place in the very rigid social structure of England. It wasn't about taxes per se, it was about the fact that they were paying taxes to an absentee landlord who gave them little in return, and did not allow them to have representation in parliament. People here on BP love thinking of themselves as SOOOO SUperior to people living back in the 18th century. Every one of them here on their High Horse, absolutely certain that if THEY had lived back then, they wouldn't have been slave owners, they would have fought for the rights of indigenous people, and other such fantasies. Nope.
Load More Replies... The number of upvotes this asinine take on how the US was founded just goes to show the average IQ on here. Wow.
Most taxes are paying for nothing anyways. Our whole idea is the that government serves US, not the other way around! We really backfired :(
I like my roads. I like that free education is provided even if it sucks. I like that people can get food if they have nothing. I like that we provide medical care to the poor. I like my police, my fire department, etc. Taxes pay for a lot. You're just not paying attention.
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As was the case with pretty much everyone in Britain and Ireland at the time. So why did the US colonists think they were so special? - perhaps it was simply the fact that they were the other side of the Atlantic and therefore thought they could get away with rebelling.
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Mexico is not yellow, and I'm tired of Hollywood always making Mexico yellow in their movies.
THANK YOU! I always thought that was weird. I think it's because of the Spaghetti Westerns of the 70s and 80s. So Italians making movies about the USA and making the South West look yellow and orange to make it look hot. That's my theory at least.
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.
I am Dutch and when I was a kid in the eighties this was taught everywhere.
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.
We play a game here in Oz called "Spot the Brit". It involves keeping an eye out for lobster red people in public. You see one, you've found the Brit. For some reason, Brits are the absolute worst at underestimating just how badly and how quickly the sun will burn them here. If you're travelling to Oz, don't bring sunscreen from your country - it's not formulated for our country and is effectively worthless. Buy some that's made here the moment you get off the plane and slather yourself in it before you step out of the airport.
Iceland does not have a Mcdonalds. Not sure if this is a well known fact or not but I get asked by trourists sometimes.
🇮🇪
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.
Most of the haggis sold for meat are farmed in Wales. Wild scottish haggis are practically extinct.
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.
Many people in the US do not carry firearms.
MOST. In fact the vast majority of us do not. At this point there are about 80 million gun OWNERS in the USA but there are almost 400 million guns. Most of us don't own any guns but the ones who do, own on average five guns each. Think about that. 2/3 of us own zero guns but the ones who do own guns, own around five. YOU ONLY HAVE TWO HANDS FFS. Gun culture is out of control.
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.
pierogi is already plural , no knead to call them pierogies.
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!
Germany: The autobahn is just a mundane part of everyday life many of us don't really think about, and speed limits do exist.
It's technically true that there's no speed limit, as in there is no general speed limits like on every other type of road. However, authorities can and do enact speed limits if road conditions make one necessary. So don't expect to go blasting over the A43 at 300 kp/h for an hour or so. You'll likely be stuck in a traffic jam for that time.
There are actually more than 3 Pyramids in Egypt.
There are more pyramids in Sudan than in Egypt. Over 200 in Sudan vs 118 In Egypt
Brazil actually have strong laws against crime. We are just incapable of enforcing them. I think most Brazilians don't know this either.
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.
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.
Yeah, nowadays it's a sterile land full of influencers and luxury shops
Good Filipino hospitality only works for foreigners. Towards fellow countrymen, most Filipinos are pretty selfish.
You could say that about numerous places around the world, tbf.
Australia - has 15 ski resorts, though by international standards they're pretty lame...and expensive.
Rick and morty is animated in ireland.
like... everything about that seems wrong.
Lot of good animation studios in Ireland. Always has been going back to the 60s.
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.
South Africa, First human heart transplant took place here. Also, the Kreepy Krauly and cat's eyes were invented here.
Note: this post originally had 40 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Yay BP. Learned some new things from this list, and it wasn't repeating frequently featured facts.
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.
Load More Replies... 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?
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.
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Late to the party, but another Netherlands factoid: our country really is "nether", much more than you might think. 40% or so is below sea level, mostly West and North. So if you're in Amsterdam or the tulip fields, you might actually be several meters under. Which is why we have dykes and windmills.
Son: "So what's a Frisian?" Me: "It's someone from one of the regions that made up what was known as the Netherlands, before the Netherlands became the name of just one country." Son: "So one of the nether regions?" Oh, he was perfectly deadpan, but he knew, he knew...
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Canada has sales tax that's calculated at the till, not in the price on the shelf. The amount varies by province because provincial sales tax (PST) is set by the provincial government (in all provinces except Alberta and the three territories, which don't have PST). There is also goods and services tax (GST) which is country-wide. I tend to forget this when I visit now, and get confused as to why things are suddenly costing more than they were advertised.
Also, the elk are not nice and will hurt you. Do not go near them.
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Same with the firearms post in the US but with cars - many people don't own either, but if you are an owner you likely own multiple, especially if you're counting by households - if you're middle-class and don't live in a big city you usually own at least one car per person over 15 years old living there (it's the standard 15/16 birthday gift). If you're doing well you often own a "daily driver" and at least one "fun" car (again, assuming you like cars).
The Okanagan Valley in British Columbia is a desert, will all the fauna you'd expect, including turtles, reptiles, and rattlesnakes. [ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/okanagan-snake-varieties-tips-1.6848623 ]
Might have heard it before, but in case you haven't. Australia actually exports both sand and camels to the middle east. Camels were imported here way back when, some got free (or were deliberately released) now we have a sizeable feral camel population.
Italian food isn’t just pizza and spaghetti. We actually have probably the most complicated food policy, with strict rules we must observe when it comes to eat (in a house seat at a table with your family) with regards to kind of food, the way it’s cooked, the way it’s served and the order it’s eat, which varies depending the time of the day and even more severe some food might be eat togheter while some other can’t. Much more complicated than any other fashion wherever.
Haggis are not real animals. This is a joke that has been around forever. Why is Buzzfeed presenting it as a "fact"?
Playing rather fast and loose with the term "facts" here, aren't we, BP? Some of these "facts" are just personal opinion, other are complete myth! I expected better of you, but BP has definitely gone downhill recently, very few of the truly fascinating articles I liked so much when I joined a few years back, and a lot more nonsense like this or just gossip and crass materialism than before. Pity, BP was my go-to site when I wanted something engaging and informative to read, but that's just not the case anymore.
How impatient are you that you honk at a driver for stopping at a yield (a 'give way' in the UK)? It may have been a new or cautious driver or one who was unfamiliar with the area. There are many reasons that a driver might make a seemingly unnecessary stop, and if they are anything like me I can understand why they'd be annoyed at someone honking away because I delayed them by a couple of precious seconds.
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Yay BP. Learned some new things from this list, and it wasn't repeating frequently featured facts.
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.
Load More Replies... 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?
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.
Load More Replies... Late to the party, but another Netherlands factoid: our country really is "nether", much more than you might think. 40% or so is below sea level, mostly West and North. So if you're in Amsterdam or the tulip fields, you might actually be several meters under. Which is why we have dykes and windmills.
Son: "So what's a Frisian?" Me: "It's someone from one of the regions that made up what was known as the Netherlands, before the Netherlands became the name of just one country." Son: "So one of the nether regions?" Oh, he was perfectly deadpan, but he knew, he knew...
Load More Replies... Canada has sales tax that's calculated at the till, not in the price on the shelf. The amount varies by province because provincial sales tax (PST) is set by the provincial government (in all provinces except Alberta and the three territories, which don't have PST). There is also goods and services tax (GST) which is country-wide. I tend to forget this when I visit now, and get confused as to why things are suddenly costing more than they were advertised.
Also, the elk are not nice and will hurt you. Do not go near them.
Load More Replies... Same with the firearms post in the US but with cars - many people don't own either, but if you are an owner you likely own multiple, especially if you're counting by households - if you're middle-class and don't live in a big city you usually own at least one car per person over 15 years old living there (it's the standard 15/16 birthday gift). If you're doing well you often own a "daily driver" and at least one "fun" car (again, assuming you like cars).
The Okanagan Valley in British Columbia is a desert, will all the fauna you'd expect, including turtles, reptiles, and rattlesnakes. [ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/okanagan-snake-varieties-tips-1.6848623 ]
Might have heard it before, but in case you haven't. Australia actually exports both sand and camels to the middle east. Camels were imported here way back when, some got free (or were deliberately released) now we have a sizeable feral camel population.
Italian food isn’t just pizza and spaghetti. We actually have probably the most complicated food policy, with strict rules we must observe when it comes to eat (in a house seat at a table with your family) with regards to kind of food, the way it’s cooked, the way it’s served and the order it’s eat, which varies depending the time of the day and even more severe some food might be eat togheter while some other can’t. Much more complicated than any other fashion wherever.
Haggis are not real animals. This is a joke that has been around forever. Why is Buzzfeed presenting it as a "fact"?
Playing rather fast and loose with the term "facts" here, aren't we, BP? Some of these "facts" are just personal opinion, other are complete myth! I expected better of you, but BP has definitely gone downhill recently, very few of the truly fascinating articles I liked so much when I joined a few years back, and a lot more nonsense like this or just gossip and crass materialism than before. Pity, BP was my go-to site when I wanted something engaging and informative to read, but that's just not the case anymore.
How impatient are you that you honk at a driver for stopping at a yield (a 'give way' in the UK)? It may have been a new or cautious driver or one who was unfamiliar with the area. There are many reasons that a driver might make a seemingly unnecessary stop, and if they are anything like me I can understand why they'd be annoyed at someone honking away because I delayed them by a couple of precious seconds.
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