This page is experimental, lazily formatted and the opinions are written with little regard to cohesion, straight from my heart. If I were able to write text and code as fast as I think, this page would be populated with all the countries of the world real quick. Sadly this will take me ages, especially entries about the big guys like USA, UK, Russia and so on. My opinion about Poland will be in a separate page dedicated to the culture of Poland that I'm constantly putting off.
Generic aquafresh flag, easily mistaken as the Dutch flag, but it’s simple and effective. The light blue is quite different than the Dutch, I can easily see that (random trivia about Polish language: we have separate and very common words a light blue ‘błękitny’ and blue ‘niebieski’) so its better than Romania vs. Chad confusion.
I like this one. It's well established in the local culture, it’s unique and the red lion is cool, but the blue stripes and lion’s complicated shape don’t look good when the flag is tiny. It looks like the crossless Greek flag that gets shot and is bleeding.
It seems logical to distinguish it from the Netherlands by adding coats of arms. I generally like the way it looks, but still, it’s not unique.
In official languages:
Open the map of Europe in MS Paint, select the rectangle that includes all the western part of Europe from Portugal to north-east Germany and shrink it into a bunch of pixels. That’s how you get Luxembourg: the entire germanic-romance Europe condensed into a super wealthy and surprisingly influential dot on the map with its own space program, large cargo airport and large finance stuff that’s going on there. It’s not Monaco level wealth however, there are no royal casinos and formula 1 races, but rather cheaper gas stations and no sunny mediterranean coast, but rather quaint central european forests and villages.
I don’t know that much about the culture, no song that represents the country for me (yet).
Never been there, but I was close, never met anybody from there sadly.
First 3 letters of the name come from the word “Luxury” or “Deluxe” I guess, nice that they have a tram system and the public transport is for free, although the majority of people commute by a car from three different countries nearby.
Yes, it’s a village on Mosel river, in the tripoint of Luxembourg, France and Germany that the Schengen area got its name from. I love border points like this, especially when no additional documents are needed to visit.
Nothing to say really, Caribbean countries are really good at making recognizable flags once they drop the Union Jack
In official languages:
I know hardly anything about those islands, just a bunch of dull trivias.
I don’t know that much about the culture, other than the fact that one of the member of Major Lazer is from there, and there is a sizable community that was brought by British from India.
Probably will never afford to get there, just like to the 90% of the world.
While I was in Brussels, I was at some chocolate souvenirs store and a nice lady behind the cash registry said that she's from Trinidad and Tobago and asked me and my friend where are we coming from and if we know anything about her homeland. A friend said nothing and I just came up with the fact that Trinidad and Tobago is rich in oil, the capital is Port of Spain and it lies next to Venezuela. Before our answers she tried to give us a hint that the country is known by the drums. I had no clue about it, at first I thought about Tam Tam drums from Worms game series, but apparently the steelpan drums are the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago. Since then this little trivia will live forever rent-free in my head.
Apart from the fact that this island is in the name of the entire country, Tobago is known to me (and some Polish history enthusiasts) as a sole example of an attempt of The Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth to colonize an island in America. Other than that I just heard that Tobago is a tourist island, while Trinidad is the oil drilling island.
Suitable flag, green, gold, very islamic and those red stripes included in 2017 add significance, emphasizing the struggle that Mauritanian people endured.
Darker green is kinda better than in the new flag, but with those red stripes it's good that they lighten up that green.
In official languages:
The first hint about the existence of the country in mass media (at least for me) was a short exchange in the scene of Titanic, one of the ladies said that the ship is not impressive because it's not that different than Mauritania.
The country's culture is usually outshined by neighbours like Morocco and Senegal, but as far as I know it got some unique features. It's definitely much harder to reach by average traveller than those two countries, and it does not advertise at all. TBC
If I somehow changed the job into professional traveller or a diplomat, I might pay a visit.
Never been there, never met or knew anybody.
It took me some time to learn how to properly type that name of the capital of Mauritania in English. I heard that this city on the Atlantic coast is extremely sprawled and lacks any high buildings.
TBC
A bit too dark blue, but cool.
In official languages:
At the age of 7, when I got a huge world atlas as a christmas gift, the map of that tiny peculiar island was prominently displayed on the separate map box. Since then I was fascinated by that tiny dot of bird poop on the vast ocean. Okay sorry, it's not meant to be an offence, it's just a history, which is very unusual in some moments.
TBC
If I were to live in the Antipodes then yeah, why not visit. I haven't even met anybody irl to know about that place.
TBC
Technically Nauru doesn't have a capital, but the fact that still the island have many tiny districts is fun to know.
TBC
USA: The official flag has 13 stripes and 50 stars representing admiration for Liberia and Malaysia.
Canada: The red maple leaf represents the maple leaf syrup.
Japan: The red circle represents the red diode mounted on every Japanese electronic device in the 80's.
South Korea: The ball on the center represents the huge cultural impact of American culture, most profoundly by Pepsi.
European Union: Dark blue represents Alaska flag, twelve stars represent a dozen stars
France: Mix of Italian design and cherished British colors.
Germany: Belgium flag that was sorted vertically from the darkest to brightest color
Poland: Upside down Indonesia