Where are the richest, poorest, fattest and deadliest places in the world?
- Brush up on your travel trivia, from the planet’s least visited destination to its least crime-ridden one, and the place where people live the longest
Purple is the least frequently used colour in national flags. Produced from a rare species of sea snail, the hue was time consuming to make and thus prohibitively expensive before the 19th century. Nicaragua and Dominica are the only countries that have purple in their flags as both were introduced after the discovery of cheap synthetic dyes.
Lasting the best part of six minutes, the world’s longest national anthem belongs to Uruguay. Thankfully, the South American nation has only ever won two Olympic gold medals. Papua New Guinea hasn’t won any but it is home to about 820 indigenous languages, which is more than any other. Tok Pisin serves as a lingua franca and is relatively easy to pick up: hospital = haus sik; late = bihaintaim; quietly = no ken mekim nois.
On the subject of indigenous communities, there are more uncontacted tribes in the Brazilian Amazon than anywhere else on Earth. Numbers are diminishing, however, as their land continues to be taken and deforested for beef-cattle pasture.
Talking of which, California has more burger joints than any other US state. Mexico is the world’s highest per capita consumer of soft drinks; residents on the Pacific island of Nauru are the most obese and the pie-loving people of Malta are Europe’s fattest folk. So much for the Mediterranean diet. Belgium is famous for the quality of its chocolate and more chocolate is sold at Brussels airport when it’s fully functioning than anywhere else – about 1.5kg a minute, or two tonnes a day.
For a surfeit of superlatives, let’s head to the Louvre, in Paris, where (arguably) the most overlooked painting in the world hangs in the worst location in the gallery. The Wedding Feast at Cana (1563), by Italian artist Paolo Veronese, is the largest painting in the world’s most visited museum. Unfortunately, the masterpiece is opposite the Mona Lisa, the world’s most valuable work of art, and the gawping hordes have eyes only for Leonardo da Vinci’s enigmatic portrait.