With almost 180 million inhabitans Pakistan is one of the most populous countries of the world. Considering that fairly little is known about it in the west, save for its nuclear weapons and it being a neighbour of India. Disputes over some areas have led to wars between India and Pakistan. There have been several [...]

Slovakia is a landlocked country in Central Europe, though traditionally culturally associated with East Europe. Until 1993 it formed the country Czechoslovakia together with what is now the Czech republic. Earlier it used to be a part of Austria-Hungary. The economy is very quickly growing, in 2006 the growth in GDP was the highest in [...]

China is the world’s second largest country by land area and has the largest population, 1.3 billion. The precise total area is controversial, since China also claims ownership on e.g. Taiwan (also known as Republic of China, while China is officially the People’s Republic of China – quite confusing). It has a rich, far-reaching history [...]

South Africa is a large country in Southern Africa (well, duh), unfortunately perhaps best known for its apartheid policy. About 80% of the people are of black origin, showing that yes, you can discriminate against the majority. It is also infamous for some other things, like the mind-blowingly high number of rapes and the horribly [...]

Vietnam is a quite long but mostly very narrow country located in the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. A former colony of France, the country suffered a a war from the 1950s/1960s until 1975, which killed millions of people, also many in the neighbouring countries. (For some reasons, many Americans think the U.S. “won” the [...]

Spain is the second largest country in Europe, located in the Southwest, by the Mediterranean. It also includes the Balearic islands, the Canary islands and three exclave states out of the country: the cities of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco and Llívia in France (how come we were never told about these in school?). Some [...]

Yes, today’s recipe is vegan “pork” skin filled with “pork”. More about that below. Colombia is a large country in the northwestern South America. Considering that it houses almost 50 million inhabitants I’d say it is very poorly known here in Europe, compared to other Latin American countries. Ethnically it is very diverse and ecologically [...]

Senegal is a country in the very west of Africa, which completely surrounds the tiny Gambia, save for its tiny coastline. Sometimes the countries are called “Senegambia”. Owing to its colonial past most of the people speak French (besides African languages), but almost all are Muslims. In the west Senegal is probably best known for [...]

An Uyghur dish sounds very interesting, doesn’t it? Even better if you know who they are. The Uyghurs are an ethnic group of Turkic people living in Eastern and Central Asia, mostly in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, but also in other parts of China and several other nearby countries. Their total number [...]

Eritrea is a small country in the Horn of Africa, a single-party republic (gulp). In 2010 it received the lowerst press freedom rating in the world. It has been in constant problems, including a 30-year war, with the neighbouring Ethiopia. Eritrea used to host a large population of elephants, but currently there are thought to [...]