Australia
Australia is both a country and a continent, the world's sixth-largest by area, with the Outback's red interior, the Great Barrier Reef on its north-eastern coast, and over 80% of its plant and animal species found nowhere else.
Australia is both a country and a continent, the world's sixth-largest by area, with the Outback's red interior, the Great Barrier Reef on its north-eastern coast, and over 80% of its plant and animal species found nowhere else.
Austria is an Alpine federal republic in Central Europe whose capital, Vienna, served as the seat of the Habsburg Empire for centuries and remains a global capital of classical music.
Azerbaijan is a South Caucasus country on the Caspian Sea, blending Soviet, Persian and Turkic influences with vast oil and gas wealth that funded Baku's striking modern skyline.
The Bahamas is a Caribbean archipelago of 700 islands and 2,400 cays just off Florida's coast, famous for turquoise shallows, the swimming pigs of Big Major Cay, and offshore finance.
Bahrain is a small archipelago kingdom in the Persian Gulf, connected to Saudi Arabia by a 25 km causeway, and one of the most liberal of the Gulf states with a strong banking and pearl-diving heritage.
Bangladesh occupies the densely-populated Ganges-Brahmaputra delta in South Asia, a low-lying, river-laced country defined by monsoon rains, rice fields and the world's largest mangrove forest.
Barbados is the easternmost Caribbean island, famous for white-sand beaches, world-class rum distilleries, and a parliament dating to 1639 — the third-oldest in the Commonwealth.
Belarus is a landlocked Eastern European country between Russia and Poland, characterised by vast forests, lakes and a Soviet-influenced political and architectural legacy.
Belgium is a Western European federation split between Dutch-speaking Flanders, French-speaking Wallonia and bilingual Brussels — itself the de-facto capital of the European Union.