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Member states of NATO

  • United KingdomThe United Kingdom is one country made of four nations. Four capitals share the work.
  • LatviaLatvia was occupied three times in a single war. The Baltic country later sang its way back to freedom.
  • ItalyItaly contains two other countries inside its borders. Vatican City and San Marino are surrounded by Italian land.
  • FinlandIn Finland's far north, the sun does not set for 73 days in summer. In winter it does not rise for 51 days.
  • PortugalPortugal's borders with Spain have barely moved since 1297. They are among the oldest frontiers in the world.
  • CanadaCanada's name began as a word for a village. In 1535, locals used it to point Jacques Cartier to Stadacona.
  • SpainSpain's name may once have meant land of rabbits. Roman coins under Hadrian show a woman with a rabbit at her feet.
  • FranceFrance may be named after a tax privilege. One suggestion says only Franks were exempt from taxes.
  • LithuaniaLithuania was once the largest country in Europe. Its grand duchy reached roughly 650,000 square kilometres.
  • DenmarkIn 1658, Swedish armies crossed frozen straits and later besieged Copenhagen for two years.
  • SwedenSweden's southern tip is closer to Rome than to its own Arctic north.
  • GermanyGermany's Swabian Jura cave held the oldest musical instruments ever found.
  • EstoniaEstonia became the first country to allow nationwide binding Internet voting, in 2005.
  • NorwayEvery December, Norway gives the United Kingdom a Christmas tree. It thanks Britain for Second World War help.
  • BelgiumBelgium once went 589 days without a formal government, a world record at the time.
  • Member states of NATOAn attack on Hawaii or Puerto Rico would not trigger NATO's promise of collective defense.
  • North MacedoniaNorth Macedonia, a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, received that name on the 12th of February 2019. On that day its government announced that constitutional amendments had taken effect, and it informed the United Nations and its…
  • United StatesThe name United States first appeared in a 1776 letter. The country it named did not yet exist.
  • GreeceIn 508 BC, Cleisthenes set up the world's first democratic government in Athens.
  • PolandPoland vanished from the map for 123 years. Its neighbors partitioned it out of existence, yet it rebuilt.
  • TurkeyAlmost everyone in Turkey lives with some risk of earthquakes. Two major fault lines border the Anatolian plate.
  • IcelandWhen the Laki volcano erupted in 1783, the famine that followed killed roughly a quarter of Iceland's population.
  • NetherlandsIn the Netherlands, 26% of the country sits below sea level. Dikes, polders and pumping stations keep that land dry.
  • RomaniaA cave in Romania holds the oldest known Homo sapiens remains in Europe.
  • CroatiaIn AD 305, a Roman emperor named Diocletian retired to a palace in Split, Croatia.
  • Czech RepublicThe Czech Republic holds the oldest ceramic figurine ever found, dated to 29,000 to 25,000 BC.
  • SloveniaSlovenia declared independence in 1991, and two days later the Yugoslav army moved in. The Ten-Day War ended in a truce.

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