Regions

Western Afghanistan, from the Persian-speaking oasis city of Herat near the Iranian border down to the deserts of Farah and Nimruz and up into the mountains of Ghor, where the Minaret of Jam stands in a river gorge — the country's old window on Persia. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The capital and the provinces around it, from the Kabul basin and the Shomali plain west to the Hazara highlands of Bamyan and east down the Kabul river to Jalalabad, the Pakistani border and the forested mountains of Nuristan — the political heart of the country. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Afghanistan's Pashtun south and south-east, from the old royal city of Kandahar and the irrigated Helmand valley to the Registan desert, up to Ghazni's minarets and east to the tribal borderlands of Paktia and Khost — the birthplace of the Afghan state and of the Taliban movement. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Afghanistan's north, the plains of ancient Bactria between the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya, running from Mazar-i-Sharif and Balkh east through Kunduz to the Pamir valleys of Badakhshan and the Wakhan corridor — Uzbek, Turkmen and Tajik country with Central Asian roots. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Albania's mountainous north, from the old lakeside city of Shkodër up into the Accursed Mountains of Theth and Valbona and east to the remote highlands of Dibër — a region of clan traditions, stone tower-houses, a spectacular lake ferry and some of the Balkans' best walking.

Albania's Tosk-speaking south, from the Myzeqe plain and the Vjosa river to the Greek border — the Ottoman stone towns of Berat and Gjirokastër, the port of Vlorë, the Ionian beaches of the Riviera from the Llogara Pass to Ksamil, ancient Butrint and Apollonia, and the cool plateau town of Korçë beside the great lakes of Ohrid and Prespa.

Albania's centre of gravity — the capital, Tirana, in its bowl of hills beneath Mount Dajti; Durrës, the ancient port and beach city on the Adriatic; Skanderbeg's castle town of Kruja on the mountainside above the plain; and Elbasan in the Shkumbin valley on the old Via Egnatia — the crowded, fast-changing heart of the country, where most of its money and people now are.

The central Mediterranean coast of Algeria, from the capital and its Ottoman Casbah west to the Roman ruins of Tipaza and east into the Djurdjura mountains and the Berber heartland of Kabylie around Tizi Ouzou and Béjaïa, with the cedar-covered Blida Atlas rising behind the Mitidja plain.

Eastern Algeria from the Sétif highlands to the Tunisian border — the old Numidian heartland around the gorge city of Constantine, with the Roman cities of Djémila and Timgad, the ports of Annaba and Skikda, the wooded Jijel coast and the Chaoui Berber country of the Aurès mountains.

Western Algeria from the Moroccan border to the Chélif valley, centred on the port city of Oran and the old royal capital of Tlemcen, with the coast of Mostaganem and Aïn Témouchent, the wine and grain country of Mascara and Sidi Bel Abbès, and the high Tiaret plateau inland — the home of raï music.

The broad steppe belt between Algeria's coastal Tell and the Sahara — sheep country around Djelfa, El Bayadh and Naama, the Saharan Atlas ranges, and the oases where the desert begins at Laghouat, Bou Saâda and Biskra, whose Ziban palm groves grow some of the country's most prized dates.

The eastern half of the Algerian Sahara, from the Ibadi towns of the M'zab valley and the domed oases of the Souf beside the Grand Erg Oriental to the oil fields of Ouargla and, far to the south, the Tuareg country of the Tassili n'Ajjer and the Hoggar mountains around Djanet and Tamanrasset, up to the borders with Libya and Niger.

The western Algerian Sahara, from the Saoura valley of Béchar, Taghit and Béni Abbès along the Grand Erg Occidental to the red-walled oases of Timimoun and Adrar, watered by ancient foggara channels, and on to the remote desert of Tindouf and Bordj Badji Mokhtar near the borders with Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania and Mali.

The Atlantic ports of Benguela and Lobito and the high plateau behind them — Huambo, Kuito and the Bié highlands where the Cuanza river rises — plus the two Cuanza provinces to the north. This is Angola's most populous belt, the Ovimbundu heartland and one of the parts of the country worst hit by the civil war.

Angola's exclave on the Atlantic coast north of the Congo river mouth, cut off from the rest of the country by a narrow strip of DR Congo territory and bordered by both Congos. Small, wet and forested, it produces a large share of Angola's oil and has a long-running separatist movement.

Angola's crowded capital and the provinces to its north and east — Bengo, Zaire and Uíge — running from the Atlantic beaches of Mussulo and the savanna of Kissama up to the Congo river and the old royal capital of Mbanza Kongo, a region of oil money, Kikongo and Kimbundu heritage and coffee hills.

Angola's vast south and south-east, from the cool Huíla plateau around Lubango down the escarpment to Namibe's desert coast, across the cattle country of Cunene to the Namibian border, and east through the remote savannas and wetlands of Cuando Cubango and Moxico, where the civil war's last battles were fought.

The inland northeast of Angola, from the farming plateau of Malanje — home of the Kalandula falls, the black rocks of Pungo Andongo and the giant sable antelope — east to the diamond provinces of Lunda-Norte and Lunda-Sul on the DR Congo border, heartland of the Ndongo kingdom and of Chokwe art.

The capital city and the surrounding province of Buenos Aires, on the western shore of the Río de la Plata — home to over a third of all Argentines, with the port city of tango and cafés at its heart, the Paraná delta at Tigre, flat pampas cattle country and a long Atlantic coast of summer resorts led by Mar del Plata.

The farming heartland of central Argentina, taking in the provinces of Córdoba, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos and La Pampa — the colonial university city of Córdoba and its Jesuit estancias, the Sierras de Córdoba, the river port of Rosario, the islands and palm groves of Entre Ríos and the open cattle plains of La Pampa.

The subtropical northeast of Argentina — Misiones, Corrientes, Chaco and Formosa — bordered by Paraguay, Brazil and Uruguay, with the Argentine side of the Iguazú falls, the ruined Jesuit missions of the Guaraní, the Iberá wetlands, a strong Guaraní-speaking culture and the dry forests of the Chaco.

The dry west-central provinces of Mendoza, San Juan, San Luis and La Rioja, under the highest stretch of the Argentine Andes — irrigated oasis country that produces most of the nation's wine, with Aconcagua above Mendoza and the fossil-rich desert parks of Ischigualasto and Talampaya in the north.

The vast, thinly populated south of Argentina — Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego — running from the Andean lakes around Bariloche across windswept steppe to the Atlantic coast and the Beagle Channel, with the glaciers of Los Glaciares, the granite spires above El Chaltén and Ushuaia at the southern tip.

Argentina's Andean northwest — the provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, Catamarca and Santiago del Estero — where colonial cities, Indigenous Andean traditions and the oldest Spanish settlements in the country meet coloured canyons, high-altitude vineyards, sugar-cane lowlands and the salt flats of the Puna.

The small, densely settled state in Australia's south-east corner, stretching from the Murray River to the cold Southern Ocean coast — shaped by the gold rushes of the 1850s, dominated by the sport-, coffee- and arts-loving city of Melbourne, and reaching out to the Great Ocean Road, the Grampians and the alpine high country.

Australia's north-eastern state, reaching from the subtropical Gold Coast to the tip of Cape York and the Torres Strait — the country's "Sunshine State", with the Great Barrier Reef along its coast, the tropical rainforests of the far north, a vast cattle and mining interior, and Brisbane as its fast-growing capital.

A largely arid state running from the gulfs and wine valleys around Adelaide north through the Flinders Ranges to the opal fields and deserts of the outback — founded in 1836 as a planned colony of free settlers, known for its German-settled Barossa, its festivals and most of the country's wine.

Australia's most populous state and the national capital territory set within it, running from the surf beaches of the Pacific coast over the Great Dividing Range to the outback plains of the far west — the place where British colonisation began in 1788, with Sydney as its largest city and Canberra as the seat of federal government.

Australia's island state, separated from the mainland by Bass Strait — a cool, mountainous place of temperate rainforest, wild coasts and World Heritage wilderness, marked by a harsh convict past and the near-destruction of its Aboriginal people, and now known for its produce, its small-town calm and Hobart's MONA.

A vast, thinly populated federal territory across Australia's north and centre, split between the tropical Top End around Darwin, Kakadu and Arnhem Land and the desert Red Centre of Alice Springs, Uluru and Kata Tjuta — the part of the country where Aboriginal land ownership, languages and law are most visible.

Australia's largest state, covering roughly a third of the continent — from the Mediterranean-climate south-west around Perth and Margaret River, through the iron-ore country of the Pilbara and the Ningaloo coast, to the tropical ranges and gorges of the Kimberley — a place defined by distance, mining wealth and some of the oldest rock art on Earth.

The northern Alps and their foreland between the Inn and the Enns — Salzburg, the Baroque city of the prince-archbishops and of Mozart, with the high valleys of the Tauern behind it; the Salzkammergut lake district that the two states share with Styria, with Hallstatt and the imperial spa of Bad Ischl; and Upper Austria's Danube plain around Linz, the country's steel town turned city of media art.

Austria's south, running from the forested "green heart" of Styria and its university city of Graz down to the warm lakes of Carinthia and the Grossglockner on the Hohe Tauern ridge — a region of vineyards on the Slovenian border, pumpkin-seed oil, spa towns and summer swimming.

Austria's two westernmost states, filling the high Alps between Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Tyrol runs along the Inn valley from Innsbruck to the glacier resorts of the Ötztal and Zillertal, with the detached district of East Tyrol beyond the Felbertauern; Vorarlberg drops from the Arlberg and the Bregenzerwald to Lake Constance.

Austria's north-eastern corner, where the Alps give way to the Danube plain and the Pannonian steppe — the imperial capital Vienna, a federal state in its own right; Lower Austria around it, with the vineyard terraces and abbeys of the Wachau, the Vienna Woods and the granite uplands of the Waldviertel; and Burgenland, the former strip of western Hungary along Lake Neusiedl.

The heart of Azerbaijan, from Baku and the oil-soaked Absheron peninsula across the semi-desert of Gobustan to the hill country of Shamakhi and Lahij and the wide Kura plain — the land of the medieval Shirvanshahs, home to about half the country's people and almost all of its oil wealth.

Western Azerbaijan, from Ganja, the country's third-largest city, and the forested Lesser Caucasus around Lake Göygöl to the highlands of Karabakh, Kalbajar and Lachin — a region shaped by the long conflict with Armenia, retaken by Azerbaijan in 2020–23 and still largely closed to ordinary visitors.

Azerbaijan's northeastern corner, running from the Caspian shore at Khachmaz and Nabran up through the apple orchards of Guba to the high Caucasus villages of Khinalig and Laza beneath Shahdag — a region of Lezgin, Tat and Mountain Jewish communities, carpet-weaving and the country's main ski resort.

Azerbaijan's humid far south, a strip of Caspian lowland and the forested Talysh Mountains between the Mughan plain and the Iranian border — tea and citrus country around Lankaran and Astara, home of the Talysh people, with ancient Hyrcanian forest on the slopes and dry highland villages around Lerik above them.

Azerbaijan's exclave beyond Armenia, an autonomous republic of dry mountains and river valleys wedged between Armenia, Iran and Turkey — a land of Noah legends, medieval Eldiguzid tombs, mountain fortresses and salt caves, cut off from the rest of the country by land since the early 1990s.

Azerbaijan's green northwest, a strip of forested foothills along the southern flank of the Greater Caucasus from Gabala and Sheki to Zagatala and the Georgian border — silk and khans' country, with a painted palace, old caravanserais, the Christian Udi village of Nij and hazelnut orchards below the snowline.

The eastern arm of Bangladesh, made up of the Chattogram and Sylhet divisions — the port city of Chattogram, the long beach at Cox's Bazar and St Martin's Island, the forested Chittagong Hill Tracts with their Indigenous peoples, and in the north-east the tea gardens, haors and Sufi shrines of Sylhet.

The heart of the delta, made up of the Dhaka and Mymensingh divisions — the capital's Mughal old city and river port, the old sultanate seat of Sonargaon, the weaving country of Narayanganj and Tangail, and to the north the Brahmaputra plains and seasonal haor wetlands of Mymensingh, Kishoreganj and Netrokona.

The south-west and south of Bangladesh, made up of the Khulna and Barishal divisions — the tidal forest of the Sundarbans with its tigers, the 15th-century mosque city of Bagerhat, the port and shrimp country around Khulna, the Baul heartland of Kushtia, and the maze of rivers, islands and launches around Barishal and Bhola.

The north-west of Bangladesh, made up of the Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions between the Padma, Jamuna and Teesta rivers — the red-soiled Barind tract, the mango orchards of Rajshahi and Chapai Nawabganj, and the country's richest ancient sites, from Mahasthangarh and Paharpur to the temples of Puthia and Kantanagar.

The western third of Belarus along the Polish and Lithuanian borders, from the fortress city of Brest and the marsh town of Pinsk north to Grodno on the Neman — the country's most Central European corner, with a large Catholic and Polish minority, the castles of Mir and Navahrudak and the primeval Białowieża forest.

The south-eastern half of Belarus along the Dnieper, Sozh and Pripyat rivers, bordering Russia and Ukraine — the industrial cities of Gomel, Mogilev and Babruysk, the flooded marshes and oak meadows of Polesia around Turaŭ, and the districts most contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

The capital and the region that surrounds it in the centre of Belarus — a rebuilt Soviet showcase city of about two million on the Svislach river, ringed by farmland, pine forest, the potash and truck towns of Salihorsk and Zhodzina, the Radziwiłł palace at Nesvizh and Lake Narach, the country's largest lake.

The northern Belarusian region along the Western Dvina, bordering Russia, Latvia and Lithuania — home to Polotsk, the oldest town in the country, to Vitebsk, Chagall's home town and an avant-garde art centre a century ago, and to the glacial Braslav lakes and forests of the Lakeland.

Belgium's Dutch-speaking north together with the bilingual capital enclosed inside it — a flat, densely settled land of medieval cloth cities that runs from the North Sea beaches and the Ypres battlefields through Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp to the Kempen heaths and Limburg's orchards, with Brussels and the European quarter at its centre.

Belgium's French-speaking southern half, running from the old coal-and-steel towns of the Sambre and Meuse valleys — Mons, Charleroi, Namur and Liège — up to the forested plateau of the Ardennes, with a small German-speaking community on its eastern edge; a region of river citadels, carnivals, Trappist abbeys and the battlefields of Waterloo and Bastogne.

Northern Belize, from the old port of Belize City and the reef islands of Ambergris Caye, Caye Caulker and the Lighthouse Reef atoll to the flat sugar-cane country of Orange Walk and Corozal on the Mexican border — the Creole heart of the country, its busiest tourist islands and a string of Maya ruins.

Western and southern Belize, from the Maya ruins, caves and pine uplands of Cayo around San Ignacio and the capital, Belmopan, down the Garifuna coast of Stann Creek to the rainforests and Maya villages of Toledo — the country's most mountainous, forested and culturally mixed region.

The middle belt of Benin, from the Abomey plateau, once the heart of the Kingdom of Dahomey, north into the granite hills of the Collines and east to the Yoruba towns of the Plateau department on the Nigerian border — a land of royal palaces, market crossroads, pilgrimage and yam farming.

Benin's crowded southern strip between Nigeria and Togo, from the lagoons of Porto-Novo and Lake Nokoué along the Atlantic shore to Grand-Popo and inland to the Couffo — the land of the old coastal kingdoms, the slave port of Ouidah, the heart of Vodun and the country's two capitals.

The northern half of Benin, from the Atacora range and its Betammaribe tower-houses east through the Bariba lands of Borgou to the cotton fields of Alibori and the Niger River — a savanna region of old kingdoms and some of West Africa's most important wildlife parks, where armed groups from the Sahel now carry out attacks.

Central Bhutan, reached over the Pele La, runs from the sacred valleys of Bumthang and the Wangchuck dynasty's home at Trongsa south through the forests of Zhemgang to the lowland districts of Sarpang, Tsirang and Dagana and the Royal Manas park on the Indian border — the kingdom's spiritual heartland and the cradle of its monarchy.

The eastern third of Bhutan, reached over the Thrumshing La or up from Samdrup Jongkhar on the Assam border — the least visited part of the kingdom, home of the Tshangla-speaking Sharchop, the ancestral valleys of the royal family in Lhuentse, Bhutan's finest weaving and the winter cranes of Bomdeling.

The western third of Bhutan, from the Indian border at Phuentsholing and Samtse up through the capital Thimphu and the Paro, Haa, Punakha and Wangdue valleys to the high Himalaya of Gasa — the heartland of the Ngalop people and of Dzongkha, and the part of the kingdom that almost every visitor sees.

Western Bolivia's high plateau and its Andean ranges, taking in the departments of La Paz, Oruro and Potosí — the seat of government in its canyon below El Alto, the Bolivian shore of Lake Titicaca, the ruins of Tiwanaku, the silver city of Potosí and the salt flats and coloured lagoons of the far south-west.

The tropical east and north of Bolivia, covering the departments of Santa Cruz, Beni and Pando — more than half the country's area, from the booming city of Santa Cruz and the Jesuit mission towns of Chiquitos to the Andean foothills at Samaipata, the flooded savannas of the Beni and the Amazon forests of the far north.

The temperate valleys of central and southern Bolivia, covering the departments of Cochabamba, Chuquisaca and Tarija — the white colonial constitutional capital of Sucre, the farming basin and fast-growing city of Cochabamba, and the vineyards of Tarija, with Quechua weaving villages, dinosaur tracks and the hot Chaco plains to the south-east.

Bosnia's north-western corner, the old Ottoman–Habsburg military frontier known as the Krajina — Banja Luka, the country's second city and the seat of Republika Srpska, on the Vrbas; the forested memorial mountain of Kozara; a scatter of castle-crowned hill towns; and, in the far west around Bihać, the emerald Una with its tufa waterfalls and national park.

The sun-baked limestone south of the country, from the emerald Neretva valley and the Ottoman bridge town of Mostar to the vineyards and the pilgrim town of Međugorje in the west, the Serb Orthodox hill country around Trebinje in the east, the high, cold plateaus of Livno and Kupres, and a 20-kilometre foothold on the Adriatic at Neum.

The mountain-ringed heart of the country — the capital Sarajevo in the Miljacka valley, the old royal and Ottoman towns of the Bosna, Lašva and Vrbas valleys at Visoko, Zenica, Travnik and Jajce, the Olympic ski mountains, and, across the entity line to the east, the upper Drina with Višegrad's bridge and the primeval forest of Sutjeska.

The flat and hilly north-east of Bosnia and Herzegovina, between the Sava and the Drina — salt-and-coal Tuzla, the farming plains of Semberija and Posavina, Brčko District, Doboj and the Drina valley towns — a region that straddles both entities and carries some of the heaviest memories of the 1992–95 war, above all at Srebrenica.

Botswana's broad middle and east, running from the Limpopo farms of the Tuli Block across the Bangwato heartland of Serowe to the Makgadikgadi and Nxai salt pans, with Francistown and the Kalanga country of the North East on the Zimbabwe border — the home of the Khama dynasty, the old gold fields and the Orapa diamond mines.

Botswana's south and west, from the capital Gaborone and the old Tswana chiefdom towns along the South African border out across the Kalahari to Ghanzi, the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park — the country's political and diamond heartland on one side, its emptiest sandveld and San homelands on the other.

Botswana's far north and north-west — Ngamiland and the Chobe district — where the Okavango river spreads into its inland delta around Maun and Moremi, and the Chobe and Linyanti rivers edge the Caprivi border past Savuti and Kasane; the country's wildlife heartland, home to much of the largest elephant population on Earth.

Brazil's largest north-eastern state and the centre of Afro-Brazilian culture — the colonial capital Salvador on the Bay of All Saints, Brazil's longest state coastline, palm-lined from Morro de São Paulo and Itacaré to Porto Seguro and Trancoso, and inland the table mountains of the Chapada Diamantina and the dry sertão.

The lower Amazon and its southern savannas, covering Pará, Amapá and Tocantins — from the river port of Belém and its Ver-o-Peso market to the buffalo ranches of Marajó island, the white Tapajós beaches of Alter do Chão, the equator monument at Macapá and the dunes and springs of Jalapão.

Brazil's high interior plateau and the wetlands below it, covering the Federal District, Goiás, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul — home to the modernist capital Brasília, the cerrado savanna of the Chapada dos Veadeiros and Chapada dos Guimarães, colonial gold towns, Bonito's clear rivers and the wildlife of the Pantanal.

The northern shoulder of Brazil's Northeast, taking in Ceará, Piauí and Maranhão — a windy Atlantic coast of dunes and fishing villages from Fortaleza and Jericoacoara to the Lençóis Maranhenses, the tiled colonial city of São Luís, and a dry interior holding the prehistoric rock art of the Serra da Capivara.

The rainforest heart of Brazil, covering Amazonas, Acre, Rondônia and Roraima — a region of vast rivers and few roads, centred on the rubber-boom city of Manaus and the Meeting of the Waters, with flooded-forest reserves such as Mamirauá, the rubber-tapper country of Acre and the Indigenous lands of the far north.

Two neighbouring states of Brazil's south-east — landlocked Minas Gerais, a highland of gold-rush towns, iron mines and dairy farms around the modern capital Belo Horizonte, and small coastal Espírito Santo, whose capital Vitória sits on an island between mountains settled by Italian and German farmers and a long beach coast.

The Atlantic bulge of northeastern Brazil, running through Sergipe, Alagoas, Pernambuco, Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte — the old heartland of colonial sugar, with Recife and Olinda, reef-sheltered beaches from Maceió to Porto de Galinhas, Natal's dunes and the offshore islands of Fernando de Noronha.

The small, mountainous state on Brazil's south-east coast that surrounds the former national capital — Rio de Janeiro city between Guanabara Bay and the Atlantic, the imperial hill town of Petrópolis, the resort peninsula of Búzios and the Costa Verde of Paraty and Ilha Grande, where forested mountains drop straight into the sea.

Brazil's most populous and wealthiest state, in the south-east — the vast metropolis of São Paulo on its plateau, a forested Atlantic coast from Santos to the island of Ilhabela and the beaches of Ubatuba, the mountain resort of Campos do Jordão, and an interior built on coffee, sugar cane and oranges.

Brazil's three southernmost states — Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul — a subtropical region of araucaria highlands, canyons and pampas, shaped by gaúcho ranching and German, Italian and Slavic immigration, running from the Iguaçu falls on the Argentine border to the island city of Florianópolis and the wine hills of the Serra Gaúcha.

South-central Bulgaria, from Plovdiv and the Upper Thracian Plain south into the forested Rhodope Mountains and east to Haskovo and the Turkish and Greek borders — a region of Roman ruins, Thracian sanctuaries, Revival-era towns, Pomak and Turkish villages, and the country's wine and vegetable heartland.

Western Bulgaria, from the capital Sofia beneath Vitosha south through the Rila and Pirin mountains to the warm Struma valley, and north across the Balkan range to the Danube at Vidin — a region of monasteries, high glacial lakes, ski resorts, wine country and a thinly peopled northwest.

Bulgaria's eastern seaboard, from the wheatfields and cliffs of Dobruja in the north through the port cities of Varna and Burgas to the forested Strandzha hills on the Turkish border — a coast of ancient Greek colonies, Byzantine churches, lagoons and the country's largest beach resorts.

The southeastern interior of Bulgaria, from the rose fields and Thracian burial mounds of the Kazanlak valley below the Balkan range to the plain around Stara Zagora and the Tundzha valley towns of Sliven and Yambol — a region of rose oil, royal Thracian tombs, Revival-era mountain villages and industrial power stations.

Northern Bulgaria between the Balkan range and the Danube, from the medieval capital Veliko Tarnovo and the craft towns of the foothills to Ruse, Pleven and the Turkish-speaking northeast around Shumen — the land where both medieval Bulgarian empires had their capitals.

Burkina Faso's green south-west, from the second city of Bobo-Dioulasso through the sugar and mango country of Banfora to the sandstone peaks of Sindou and the Lobi lands around Gaoua — the wettest part of the country, a patchwork of peoples and, until recently, its main tourist area.

The Mossi heartland of Burkina Faso around the capital, Ouagadougou, spreading across the central plateau to Koudougou, Kaya and Tenkodogo, south to the Kassena country on the Ghanaian border and east through Fada N'Gourma to the savanna parks of Arly and W — the country's political and cultural centre, now also hit hard by the insurgency.

The northern third of Burkina Faso, from the old Mossi kingdom of Yatenga around Ouahigouya east across the dry Sahel of Dori and Gorom-Gorom and west to the bend of the Mouhoun river — a land of herders, millet farmers and old markets, and the region where the country's insurgency began and has hit hardest.

Cambodia's short coastline on the Gulf of Thailand, from the pepper country of Kampot and the old French seaside resort of Kep to the port of Sihanoukville, the islands of Koh Rong and the mangroves and rainforest of Koh Kong below the Cardamom Mountains.

The Cambodian heartland of rice plains, rivers and old royal capitals around Phnom Penh, where the Mekong, the Tonlé Sap and the Bassac meet — stretching from Kampong Thom and Kampong Chhnang to the Vietnamese border, and holding the pre-Angkorian cities, the post-Angkor capitals and the memorials of the Khmer Rouge years.

Cambodia's thinly populated north and north-east, from the Dângrêk escarpment on the Thai border across the Mekong at Kratie and Stung Treng to the red-earth plateaus of Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri — a region of remote Angkorian temples, river dolphins, indigenous highland peoples, forests and waterfalls.

North-western Cambodia, from the temples of Angkor and the town of Siem Reap around the northern and western shores of the Tonlé Sap to Battambang, Pursat and the Thai border — the old imperial heartland, the country's rice bowl and the last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge.

Western Cameroon, from Mount Cameroon and the Atlantic coast at Limbe up into the cool volcanic grasslands of Bamenda and the Bamiléké and Bamum country around Bafoussam and Foumban. It takes in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions, where a separatist conflict has been fought since 2017, and the French-speaking West region.

Cameroon's southern half, from the port city of Douala and the capital Yaoundé down the Atlantic coast to Kribi and east through equatorial forest to Bertoua and the borders of Congo and the Central African Republic — the country's economic core and its great rainforest belt.

Cameroon's northern third, climbing from the savanna and cattle country of the Adamawa plateau around Ngaoundéré down to the Benue valley at Garoua and on to the Sahelian plains, the Mandara mountains and Lake Chad in the Far North — a mainly Muslim land of Fulani lamidates and mountain peoples, where Boko Haram has been active since the 2010s.

Canada's westernmost prairie province, rising from the wheat fields and badlands of the plains to the eastern wall of the Rocky Mountains, where Banff and Jasper national parks hold the country's best-known glacial lakes — a land of Treaty 6, 7 and 8 nations, ranching, oil wealth and the two rival cities of Calgary and Edmonton.

Canada's Pacific province, running from the rainforest coast and the islands of the Inside Passage over the Coast Mountains to the dry Okanagan valley and the western slopes of the Rockies — home to Vancouver, the island capital Victoria, the ski resort of Whistler and a long Indigenous history that treaties largely never covered.

Canada's easternmost province, made up of the island of Newfoundland and the vast, thinly peopled mainland of Labrador — a place of outport fishing villages, icebergs and whales, the Viking site at L'Anse aux Meadows, and a distinct identity from its years as a separate dominion before joining Canada in 1949.

Canada's most populous province, stretching from the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence to the subarctic shore of Hudson Bay — home to Toronto, the national capital Ottawa, the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, and the lakes and forests of Muskoka, Algonquin and the Canadian Shield that shape the country's idea of the outdoors.

Canada's largest province and the heart of French-speaking North America, stretching from the St Lawrence valley — home to Montreal and walled Quebec City — north across the Canadian Shield to the Arctic, with the Laurentians, Charlevoix and the Gaspé peninsula along the way.

The three small provinces of Canada's Atlantic seaboard — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island — a region of fishing harbours, lighthouses and old ports around the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of St Lawrence, shaped by the Mi'kmaq, the Acadians, Loyalists and Scottish settlers.

Canada's three northern territories — Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut — cover about 40% of the country but hold only around 130,000 people, about half of them Indigenous; a land of mountains, boreal forest, tundra and Arctic islands, gold-rush towns and aurora skies.

Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the two provinces at the centre of Canada — a sweep of wheat and canola fields, mixed grassland and parkland that gives way to boreal forest, thousands of lakes and the subarctic shore of Hudson Bay, shaped by the Plains nations, the Métis of Red River and the settlers who homesteaded the West.

The south-eastern quarter of the Central African Republic, running along the Ubangi and Mbomou rivers on the Congolese border from Mobaye to Bangassou and inland to the diamond town of Bria and the remote forest and savanna around Obo near South Sudan — the most isolated and least populated part of the country.

The south-western part of the Central African Republic, from the capital Bangui on the Ubangi river west through the forests of Lobaye and the diamond country around Berbérati to Bouar and the Cameroon border, and south to the Dzanga-Sangha rainforest — the country's most populated and connected region, and the part most often visited.

The savanna heart and north of the Central African Republic, from the cotton country of Bossangoa and Bozoum through Sibut and Bambari to the wildlife parks of Bamingui-Bangoran and Manovo-Gounda St Floris and the dry far north on the Chad and Sudan borders — the region where the conflict since 2013 began and has been fought hardest.

Eastern Chad, from the granite peaks of Guéra and the wildlife of Zakouma National Park to Abéché, the old capital of the Ouaddaï sultanate, and the Sudan border — a Sahelian land of herders and farmers that now shelters one of the world's largest refugee populations.

Chad's green, farming south between the Logone and Chari rivers and the Central African Republic border — the Sara heartland, largely Christian, built on cotton and now oil, with Moundou and Sarh as its cities and Manda National Park on the Chari.

Chad's western core along the Chari and Logone rivers — the capital, N'Djamena, facing Cameroon across the water, the old Baguirmi sultanate lands of Chari-Baguirmi, the southern shore of Lake Chad in Hadjer-Lamis, and the lakes, falls and cotton fields of Mayo-Kebbi on the Cameroon border.

The northern two-thirds of Chad, from the Sahelian shores of Lake Chad, Kanem and Batha to the deep Sahara of Borkou, the Ennedi plateau and the Tibesti volcanoes on the Libyan border — the old heartland of the Kanem empire and of the Toubou, with two UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Chile's northernmost strip, from the Peruvian border south through Arica and Tarapacá — a coastal desert of port cities and dry valleys rising to an Andean altiplano of volcanoes, lakes and Aymara villages, with the world's oldest artificial mummies and the ruins of the nitrate boom that made Chile rich.

Chile's least populated region, a wilderness of fjords, rainforest, glaciers and steppe between the Pacific and Argentina, strung along the Carretera Austral — a frontier settled only in the 20th century, centred on Coyhaique and known for the Marble Caves, the Northern Patagonian Ice Field and new national parks.

The Coquimbo Region, where Chile's northern desert gives way to a semi-arid land of green river valleys — the colonial city of La Serena and the port of Coquimbo on the coast, and inland the Elqui Valley of pisco vineyards, clear skies, observatories and the poet Gabriela Mistral.

The heart of the Atacama Desert, covering the Antofagasta and Atacama regions of northern Chile — an oasis village beneath volcanoes, salt flats and geysers, the copper and lithium mines that power Chile's economy, world-class observatories, and a Pacific coast of mining ports and pale-sand beaches.

Chile's central heartland, covering the Santiago Metropolitan Region and the Valparaíso Region — the capital in its Andean valley, the hillside port of Valparaíso and the resort of Viña del Mar, wine valleys and ski slopes, plus Easter Island (Rapa Nui), far out in the Pacific but governed as part of Valparaíso.

The farming and wine heartland south of Santiago, running through O'Higgins, Maule, Ñuble and Biobío from the Andes to the Pacific — a land of vineyards, orchards and huaso horsemen that ends at the Biobío river, the old frontier with the Mapuche, and at Concepción, Chile's second metropolitan area.

Southern Chile's green heartland of lakes, volcanoes and temperate rainforest, running through La Araucanía, Los Ríos and Los Lagos from the Mapuche country around Temuco to the German-settled lake towns, the port of Puerto Montt and the island of Chiloé, with its wooden churches and its own island culture.

Chile's southernmost region, reaching from the granite towers of Torres del Paine across the Strait of Magellan to the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego and the islands around Cape Horn — a land of ice fields, wind-swept steppe, sheep estancias and the port city of Punta Arenas, cut off by road from the rest of Chile.

The capital region on the North China Plain and the hills behind it — Beijing, the port city of Tianjin, the province of Hebei that surrounds them, and coal-rich, history-laden Shanxi to the west — where the Great Wall crosses the ridges and six centuries of imperial and Communist government have left their monuments.

The inland heart of China between the Yellow River and the middle Yangtze — Henan, Hubei, Anhui and Jiangxi — the cradle of early Chinese dynasties and ancient capitals, home of the granite peaks of Huangshan, the Shaolin temple, the porcelain kilns of Jingdezhen and the Three Gorges Dam, with the great rail hub of Wuhan at its centre.

China's southern seaboard, from the Pearl River Delta megacities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen up the Fujian coast to Xiamen and south across the strait to tropical Hainan — the country's old gateway to maritime trade, the homeland of most overseas Chinese, and the birthplace of Cantonese food and the reform era.

Two neighbouring provinces of south-central China — Hunan, the fiery-food homeland of Mao Zedong with Changsha and the sandstone pillars of Zhangjiajie, and Guangxi, the Zhuang autonomous region of karst peaks, the Li River and minority villages set among rice terraces.

China's long northern borderland, stretching along Mongolia and Russia from the forests of the Greater Khingan to the Gobi — an autonomous region of grassland, desert and coal cities where Mongol herding traditions survive alongside a large Han Chinese majority.

The wealthy eastern seaboard from the Yangtze delta to the Shandong peninsula — Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong — where canal towns, classical gardens and old imperial capitals sit beside China's largest city, its busiest ports and its densest high-speed rail network, and where Confucius was born.

China's south-west, stretching from the Sichuan Basin and the Yangtze city of Chongqing over the Guizhou plateau to Yunnan's mountains and the tropical Mekong borderlands — the country's most ethnically diverse corner, home of giant pandas, chilli-and-peppercorn cooking, and old towns of the Bai, Naxi, Dai and Miao.

China's far north-east — the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, historically called Manchuria — a land of black-soil plains, forested mountains and long frozen winters, bordering Russia and North Korea, shaped by the Manchu Qing dynasty, Russian railways, Japanese occupation and the heavy industry of the early People's Republic.

The Tibet Autonomous Region covers the high western plateau of China, from Lhasa and the Yarlung Tsangpo valley to the Everest massif and the remote lakes of the west — the historic centre of Tibetan Buddhism, governed by China since 1950 in circumstances still disputed, and open to foreign visitors only on permits and guided tours.

China's vast north-west, running from the ancient capital of Xi'an in Shaanxi along the Hexi Corridor of Gansu to Qinghai, Ningxia and the deserts and oases of Xinjiang — the Chinese end of the Silk Road, home to Hui, Tibetan and Uyghur Muslims and Buddhists, and a region where Xinjiang's heavy security shapes daily life.

The Eastern Cordillera of the Andes, from the capital's high plateau through the old Muisca lands of Cundinamarca and Boyacá to the canyons of Santander and the Venezuelan border at Cúcuta — the cradle of Colombian independence, a land of colonial towns, páramo moorland and the snow peaks of El Cocuy.

Colombia's south-west, from the sugar-cane valley around Cali over the Andes of Cauca and Nariño to the Ecuadorian border, and west to the rain-soaked Pacific coast of Chocó — a region of salsa, colonial Popayán, Indigenous highlands and Afro-Colombian coastal culture, and one still marked by armed conflict in its rural areas.

Colombia's northern coastal lowlands, from the cattle savannas of Córdoba to the desert tip of La Guajira and out to the islands of San Andrés — the costeño country of walled Cartagena, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, river towns on the Magdalena, vallenato and the world of García Márquez.

The vast eastern half of Colombia, from the grassland plains below the Andes at Villavicencio to the Orinoco on the Venezuelan border and south into the forests of Guaviare, Vaupés and Guainía — cowboy country of cattle ranches, joropo and oil fields, and a sparsely populated frontier long shaped by armed conflict.

The paisa country of the Central Andes, running from Antioquia and its capital Medellín south through the coffee departments of Caldas, Risaralda and Quindío — a region shaped by 19th-century settlers, steep coffee slopes and wax-palm valleys, and by Medellín's journey from cartel violence to urban reinvention.

Colombia's south, running from the upper Magdalena valley in Tolima and Huila over the Andes into the rainforests of Caquetá and Putumayo and down to Leticia on the Amazon — a region of ancient stone statues, a red-earth desert, Andean-Amazonian valleys and the tri-border river port where Colombia meets Brazil and Peru.

Costa Rica's dry north-western province, stretching from the volcanoes of the Guanacaste range and the Nicaraguan border across cattle plains and the Tempisque wetlands to the Pacific beaches of the Nicoya Peninsula — a land of sabanero cowboys, marimba music and surf towns, with the country's sunniest coast.

The long province of Puntarenas, which wraps around the Gulf of Nicoya and runs down Costa Rica's central and southern Pacific coast to Panama — from Monteverde's cloud forest and the port of Puntarenas to Jacó, Manuel Antonio, the whale-watching bay at Uvita and the rainforests of the Osa Peninsula and Corcovado.

Costa Rica's populous heartland — the provinces of San José, Alajuela, Heredia and Cartago — running from the coffee-covered plateau around the capital up to the Poás, Irazú and Turrialba volcanoes and north across the mountains to the Arenal volcano, La Fortuna and the lowland plains towards Nicaragua.

The province of Limón, Costa Rica's Caribbean side, running from the canals and turtle beaches of Tortuguero past the port city of Limón to Cahuita, Puerto Viejo and the Panamanian border — a humid lowland of rainforest and banana plantations shaped by Afro-Caribbean settlers and the Bribri and Cabécar peoples of Talamanca.

Côte d'Ivoire's south-eastern coast and hinterland, strung along the Ébrié, Aby and Grand-Lahou lagoons — home to Abidjan, the economic capital and largest city, to the old colonial capitals of Grand-Bassam and Bingerville, the beach strip of Assinie and, inland, the Agni kingdom of Abengourou among the cocoa farms.

The savanna north of Côte d'Ivoire, stretching from Odienné and Séguéla in the west through the Senufo country around Korhogo to Bondoukou and the Comoé National Park in the east — a mainly Muslim land of mud mosques, craft villages, cotton and cashew farms, bordering Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana.

The Bas-Sassandra district in Côte d'Ivoire's far south-west, running from the Sassandra river mouth to the Liberian border and inland to Soubré — a land of rocky coves, fishing towns and former rainforest turned into the country's cocoa heartland, with the cocoa port of San-Pédro and the edge of Taï National Park.

The broad centre and west of Côte d'Ivoire, from the Baoulé savannas around Yamoussoukro, the official capital, and Bouaké, the second city, across the Bété cocoa country of Daloa and Gagnoa to the granite mountains of Man and the Dan and Wè villages near the Guinean and Liberian borders.

Croatia's southern coast, running from the island of Pag to the Montenegrin border beneath the wall of the Dinaric mountains — the Roman and Venetian stone cities of Zadar, Šibenik, Split and Dubrovnik, the islands of Brač, Hvar, Vis and Korčula offshore, and a sparsely peopled karst hinterland around Knin, Sinj and Imotski.

Croatia's north-western corner, where the Istrian peninsula, the Kvarner gulf with Rijeka, Opatija and the islands of Krk, Cres, Lošinj and Rab, and the forested highlands of Gorski Kotar and Lika meet — Roman Pula, Venetian Rovinj and hilltop Motovun, a Habsburg riviera and, inland, the travertine lakes and waterfalls of Plitvice.

The flat, fertile east of Croatia between the Drava, the Sava and the Danube — the Pannonian plain of Slavonia, Baranja and western Syrmia, a country of maize and wheat fields, oak forest, Habsburg fortress towns and river wetlands, centred on Osijek and still marked by the siege of Vukovar in 1991 and by a generation of emigration since.

Croatia's continental core, with the capital at the foot of Medvednica, the vineyard hills of Zagorje and baroque Varaždin to the north, Međimurje between the Mura and the Drava, and the Sava floodplain and the fortress town of Karlovac to the south — a Central European country of castles, spas and storks rather than sea.

The broad cattle and sugar plains of east-central Cuba, covering the provinces of Ciego de Ávila, Camagüey and Las Tunas — a region of ranching towns, the maze-like colonial city of Camagüey and, off the north coast, the white-sand resort cays of Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo.

The western end of Cuba, taking in the capital Havana, the farming provinces of Artemisa and Mayabeque, the tobacco country of Pinar del Río and the offshore Isle of Youth — a region defined by the colonial port city, the limestone mogotes of Viñales and the leaf that goes into the world's best-known cigars.

Cuba's mountainous eastern end, the old Oriente, covering the provinces of Holguín, Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo — the region where Columbus landed, where both the independence wars and the 1959 revolution began, and the heartland of son, Afro-Caribbean culture and the Sierra Maestra.

The heart of Cuba, made up of the provinces of Villa Clara, Cienfuegos and Sancti Spíritus, running from the northern cays across the sugar plains to the Escambray mountains and the Caribbean coast — home to the colonial town of Trinidad, the French-founded port of Cienfuegos and Santa Clara, the city of Che Guevara's decisive 1958 battle.

The province of Matanzas, east of Havana, stretching from the resort strip of Varadero on the north coast across old sugar plains to the Zapata swamp and the Bay of Pigs on the south — the historic heart of Cuba's sugar and slavery economy and the birthplace of danzón and much of Cuban rumba.

The eastern half of Czechia, from the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands to the Carpathian foothills and the Polish and Slovak borders — historic Moravia and Czech Silesia, with the second city of Brno, the old capital of Olomouc, the wine and folk villages of the south, the industrial city of Ostrava and the Beskydy hills.

The long arc of northern and eastern Bohemia along the German and Polish borders, from the Elbe valley and the sandstone gorges of Bohemian Switzerland through the glass towns around Liberec to the Krkonoše, the country's highest mountains, and down to the Elbe lowlands of Hradec Králové and Pardubice — an old industrial and borderland region of rocks, castles and ski slopes.

The heart of the Bohemian basin, where the capital sits on the Vltava inside a ring of rolling farmland, forest and river valleys — the old royal core of the Czech state, with the silver town of Kutná Hora, the castles of Karlštejn and Konopiště, and the vineyards of Mělník above the meeting of the Vltava and the Elbe.

Czechia's southern region on the Austrian and Bavarian borders, a land of fishponds, pine woods and quiet market towns once ruled by the Rosenberg and Schwarzenberg families — home to the castle town of Český Krumlov, the brewing city of České Budějovice and the Šumava forest along the upper Vltava.

Czechia's western corner along the German border, reaching from the brewing city of Plzeň across wooded hills to the Ore Mountains — the home of the pilsner lager and of the three great spa towns of Karlovy Vary, Mariánské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně, built over mineral springs for the aristocracy of 19th-century Europe.

The eastern highlands of the DR Congo along the Albertine Rift — North and South Kivu, with Goma, Bukavu and Lake Kivu, the Virunga volcanoes and their mountain gorillas — together with the lowland forest province of Maniema around Kindu. It is among the most fertile parts of the country and the centre of a conflict that has continued since the 1990s.

The DR Congo's western corridor, running from the megacity of Kinshasa down the lower Congo River to Matadi, Boma and the short Atlantic coast at Muanda, and inland across the Kwango, Kwilu and Mai-Ndombe savannas and lakes — the old heartland of the Kongo kingdom and the country's political and musical capital.

The north-eastern DR Congo, from Kisangani at the head of navigation on the Congo River through the Ituri forest to the Uélé savannas and the Ugandan and South Sudanese borders — a region of great rainforest, gold, the okapi and the Mbuti, marked by repeated wars and, in Ituri, by armed conflict that continues today.

The DR Congo's high, mineral-rich south-east — the old province of Katanga — running from the Copperbelt cities of Lubumbashi and Kolwezi to Lake Tanganyika at Kalemie and the Upemba wetlands of the Luba heartland. It produces much of the world's cobalt and has its own proud, Swahili-speaking identity.

The DR Congo's north-western rainforest and river country, from Mbandaka on the equator around the great bend of the Congo to the Ubangi borderlands and Mobutu's palace town of Gbadolite — a Lingala- and Mongo-speaking land of rivers, swamp forest and the Salonga reserve, the largest in Africa's rainforest.

The savanna and forest heart of the southern DR Congo, drained by the Kasai river and its tributaries — Luba and Kuba country around Kananga, Mbuji-Mayi and Tshikapa, built on diamonds, home to the Tshiluba language and to the country's current presidential family, and the birthplace of Patrice Lumumba in Sankuru.

The broad middle of the Jutland peninsula, running from Aarhus, Denmark's second city, and the hilly Djursland peninsula on the Kattegat, across the forested lake district around Silkeborg and the old assembly town of Viborg, over reclaimed heath to the dunes, fjords and fishing harbours of the North Sea coast, with the islands of Samsø and Anholt offshore.

Denmark's eastern islands — Copenhagen and its commuter belt, the castle coast of North Zealand, Roskilde and the market towns of Zealand's farmland, the chalk cliffs of Møn and Stevns, the sugar-beet islands of Lolland and Falster, and Bornholm, a granite outlier in the Baltic that lies closer to Sweden than to the capital.

The top of Denmark — Aalborg on the Limfjord, the heather hills and forest of Himmerland to its south and, beyond the fjord, the near-island of Vendsyssel and Thy, a coast of wide beaches, drifting dunes and fishing harbours that narrows to the sand spit of Skagen, where the Skagerrak meets the Kattegat, with the salt-making island of Læsø offshore.

Denmark's south-western third — the garden island of Funen with Odense and the small islands of its southern archipelago, the fjord towns of Vejle, Kolding and Fredericia, the North Sea port of Esbjerg and the Wadden Sea marshes around Ribe, and South Jutland, the borderland with Germany that was ruled from Berlin between 1864 and 1920.

The country's dry, mountainous south-west along the Haitian border, from the farming valley of San Juan de la Maguana to the salt lake of Enriquillo and the cliff-edged coast of Barahona and Pedernales — the least developed and most varied region, with cloud forest, desert scrub and deserted beaches within a few hours of each other.

The eastern end of the country, from the sugar city of San Pedro de Macorís past La Romana and Higüey to the long Atlantic beaches of Punta Cana and Bávaro — the heart of Dominican mass tourism, still framed by cane fields, cattle ranches and the protected coast and islands of the Cotubanamá park.

The north-eastern corner of the country, from the cacao and rice lands around San Francisco de Macorís to the Atlantic coast at Nagua and the mountainous Samaná peninsula — a region of palm-lined beaches, waterfalls and the winter gathering of humpback whales in Samaná Bay.

The north and north-west of the country, from the Haitian border at Dajabón and Monte Cristi across the fertile Cibao valley to the Amber Coast of Puerto Plata and the pine-covered Cordillera Central — the heartland of tobacco, merengue típico and the second city, Santiago.

The capital and the provinces around it on the south-central Caribbean coast, from Monte Plata's cane fields to the dry plains of Baní and Azua — the oldest European city in the Americas, home to well over a third of all Dominicans, with city beaches to the east and dunes, salt pans and mountain coffee to the west.

The southern highlands of Cañar, Azuay and Loja, lower and greener than the volcano country to the north — a land of Cañari and Inca ruins, the colonial city of Cuenca, the lake-strewn páramo of Cajas, the musical city of Loja and the warm Vilcabamba valley near the Peruvian border.

Ecuador's lowland west, from the mangroves of Esmeraldas to the banana plantations of El Oro — home to Guayaquil, the country's largest city and port, the surf beaches of Santa Elena and Manabí, whale-watching waters off Puerto López, and the cacao farms of Los Ríos. Much of the region has been hit hard by gang violence since about 2021.

Ecuador's central and northern highlands, running from the Colombian border through Quito and down the Avenue of the Volcanoes to Riobamba — a double chain of snow peaks, páramo and farmed valleys, home to the capital, the Otavalo market, the Quilotoa crater and the spa town of Baños.

Ecuador's Oriente, the rainforest lowlands and Andean foothills east of the mountains — close to half the country's land but only a few per cent of its people, home to Kichwa, Shuar, Waorani and other Indigenous nations, the river lodges of the Napo, the Cuyabeno and Yasuní reserves, and the oilfields that fund the national budget.

A volcanic archipelago on the equator about 900 kilometres west of mainland Ecuador, almost all of it national park and marine reserve — famous for giant tortoises, marine iguanas and fearless seabirds, for Darwin's visit of 1835, and for a small population living in the towns of Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, Isabela and Floreana.

Lower Egypt — the fan of farmland between Cairo and the Mediterranean, bounded by Alexandria in the west and the Suez Canal cities of Port Said and Ismailia in the east. A flat, crowded, irrigated land of cotton and rice, market towns, saints' festivals and a coast once shaped by the Greek and Roman city of Alexandria.

The point where the Nile Valley opens into the Delta — Greater Cairo and Giza with their pyramid fields, the orchards of Qalyubia, the Faiyum oasis with its lake and desert reserves, and Beni Suef on the river to the south. Egypt's capital region, holding the Old Kingdom's royal cemeteries and a thousand years of Islamic Cairo.

Upper Egypt, the narrow green strip of the Nile Valley running south from Minya through Asyut, Sohag and Qena to Luxor and Aswan, and on to Lake Nasser and Abu Simbel. The heartland of pharaonic temples and tombs, of Sa'idi and Nubian culture, and of Egypt's classic river journey.

Egypt's eastern edge — the Sinai Peninsula between the Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba, the canal city of Suez, and the long Red Sea coast of the Eastern Desert down to the Sudanese border. Bare mountains, Bedouin country and coral reefs, now home to Egypt's biggest beach resorts, while North Sinai remains off-limits after years of insurgency.

The vast, empty western two-thirds of Egypt, covered by the New Valley and Matrouh governorates — a chain of oases from Kharga and Dakhla to Farafra and Siwa, chalk and sand landscapes, and a Mediterranean coast running from El Alamein past Marsa Matruh towards Libya. Egypt's least populated region and its largest.

Estonia's northern half, from the island of Hiiumaa and the old bishops' resort of Haapsalu in the west, through Tallinn — home to a third of the country — and the manors, bogs and boulder-strewn coast of Lahemaa, to the oil-shale towns and the Russian-speaking border city of Narva in the east, with the farmland of Rapla, Järva and Jõgeva counties reaching south to Lake Peipus.

The southern half of Estonia, from the university city of Tartu and the summer resort of Pärnu to the island of Saaremaa, the Mulgi farmlands around Viljandi, the hills and lakes of Otepää and Võrumaa, and the Orthodox Seto lands on the Russian border — the country's rural, song-rich heartland and the home of its old southern dialects.

The centre and east of Ethiopia, from the capital Addis Ababa across Oromia, the country's largest and most populous region, to the walled Muslim city of Harar, the railway town of Dire Dawa and the arid Somali lowlands around Jijiga — a band that runs from the Bale Mountains and the Rift Valley lakes to the borders of Somalia and Djibouti.

Ethiopia's northern highlands and lowlands — Amhara, Tigray, Afar and Benishangul-Gumuz — the heartland of the ancient kingdom of Aksum and the Orthodox Christian empire, with the rock churches of Lalibela, Gondar's castles, Lake Tana and the Simien Mountains, falling east to the salt flats and volcanoes of the Danakil.

Ethiopia's south and south-west — the former Southern Nations region, Sidama, South West Ethiopia and Gambela — a patchwork of dozens of peoples stretching from the lakes of Hawassa and Arba Minch through the Konso terraces to the Omo Valley and the Kenyan border, with wild coffee forests in the highlands of Kaffa and hot lowland plains around Gambela.

Fiji's Western Division — the dry, leeward half of Viti Levu with Nadi, Lautoka and the sugar-cane belt, the Coral Coast along the south shore, and the Mamanuca and Yasawa island chains offshore. It is where most visitors land and stay, and the heartland of the country's sugar industry and Indo-Fijian farming communities.

Fiji's Central and Eastern Divisions and the dependency of Rotuma — the wet south-east of Viti Levu with the capital Suva, the Rewa delta and Pacific Harbour, and the scattered islands of Lomaiviti, Kadavu and Lau, plus Polynesian Rotuma far to the north. It is the country's political centre and its least-touristed outer reaches.

Fiji's Northern Division — Vanua Levu, the country's second-largest island, with the sugar town of Labasa and the sheltered yacht harbour of Savusavu, plus the rainforest island of Taveuni and smaller islands such as Rabi and Kioa. It is quieter and less developed than Viti Levu, known for its reefs, rainforest and farming.

Finland's most populous corner, running along the Gulf of Finland from the capital and its bilingual coast east to the Russian border and inland to the lake towns of Häme — the region of Helsinki and the Suomenlinna sea fortress, wooden Porvoo, Sibelius's Hämeenlinna, the ski town of Lahti and Lappeenranta on Lake Saimaa.

The forested, lake-filled heart of Finland, running from industrial Tampere through Jyväskylä and the Saimaa system of Savo to North Karelia on the eastern border — the classic summer landscape of islands, cottages and lake steamers, with Savonlinna's island castle, Kuopio, Joensuu and the Koli hills.

The northern half of Finland, from the city of Oulu on the Gulf of Bothnia and the forests of Kainuu up through Rovaniemi near the Arctic Circle to the fells and Sámi homeland of Inari — a land of reindeer, ski resorts, polar night and midnight sun, and the country's main draw for the northern lights.

The flat farmland and low, rising coast of western Finland along the Gulf of Bothnia — a bilingual shore of Swedish-speaking fishing and farming communities around Vaasa and the Kvarken archipelago, and inland the proud Finnish-speaking plains of South Ostrobothnia around Seinäjoki, with Kokkola to the north.

Finland's south-western corner, where the mainland breaks up into the Archipelago Sea and the self-governing, Swedish-speaking Åland Islands — the country's oldest settled coast, with the former capital Turku and its cathedral and castle, Naantali, the wooden old town of Rauma and the jazz city of Pori in Satakunta.

East-central France from the volcanic uplands of the Massif Central to the Italian and Swiss borders, formed in 2016 from Auvergne and Rhône-Alpes — the gastronomic city of Lyon on the Rhône and Saône, the Beaujolais hills, the lakes and ski resorts of Savoie, and Mont Blanc above Chamonix.

France's westernmost peninsula, pushing into the Atlantic between the Channel and the Bay of Biscay — a Celtic land named by Britons who crossed the sea in the 5th century and an independent duchy until 1532, with its own language, music and saints, some 2,700 kilometres of granite coast, walled ports, prehistoric standing stones and a kitchen of buckwheat, salted butter, cider and shellfish.

East-central France between the Paris basin and the Swiss border, joined as one region in 2016 — Burgundy's vineyards, Romanesque abbeys and ducal capital of Dijon, and Franche-Comté's forested Jura mountains, cheese dairies and fortified city of Besançon.

A mountainous Mediterranean island south-east of the French mainland and north of Sardinia, governed as a territorial collectivity with its own assembly — Genoese citadels at Bastia, Calvi and Bonifacio, Napoleon's birthplace at Ajaccio, a distinct Corsican language and culture, and granite peaks crossed by the GR20 trail.

France's north-eastern region, bordering Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland, formed in 2016 from Alsace, Lorraine and Champagne-Ardenne — a borderland fought over for centuries, with Strasbourg's European institutions, the half-timbered wine villages of Alsace, the Champagne cellars of Reims and Épernay, and the battlefields of Verdun.

France's northernmost region, between Paris, the Channel and the Belgian border — the former Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy, merged in 2016. Flemish belfries and brick squares, the tallest Gothic cathedrals, chalk capes facing Dover, slag heaps turned into heritage and the memorials of the Somme mark a densely peopled borderland that every European war has crossed.

The north-western region between Paris and the Channel, from the chalk cliffs of the Alabaster Coast to the Cotentin peninsula and the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel — the Viking duchy that conquered England in 1066 and the landing ground of June 1944, a country of dairy pasture, apple orchards, half-timbered towns and the coastal light the Impressionists painted.

France's largest region by area, running down the Atlantic from the Loire's southern edge to the Spanish border and inland to the Limousin — the wine country of Bordeaux, the prehistoric caves and castles of the Dordogne, the pine forests and surf beaches of the Landes, and the Basque coast at Biarritz.

France's southern region between the Rhône and the Pyrenees, formed in 2016 from Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées — the pink-brick aerospace city of Toulouse, the Mediterranean coast from the Camargue to Catalan Roussillon, Roman Nîmes, the Cathar castles and the high country of the Cévennes and the Pyrenees.

France's capital region — Paris and the ring of suburbs, forests and river valleys around it, home to almost a fifth of the country's people. The royal seats of Versailles and Fontainebleau, the medieval fair town of Provins and Disneyland Paris all lie within an hour of a city that has led Western art, fashion and politics for eight centuries.

France's south-eastern corner, stretching from the Rhône delta to the Italian border and up into the southern Alps — Greek-founded Marseille, papal Avignon and Roman Arles, the hill villages and lavender of the Luberon, the Verdon Gorge, and the Riviera resorts of Nice, Cannes and Saint-Tropez.

Two regions strung along France's longest river — Centre-Val de Loire, the royal heartland of Renaissance châteaux, vineyards and cathedral cities from Chartres and Orléans to Tours, and Pays de la Loire, which follows the river through Anjou to Nantes, the Atlantic beaches and the marshes of the Vendée.

South-central Georgia, from the orchards of Shida Kartli around Gori, Stalin's birthplace, up the Mtkvari through the forested Borjomi gorge to the high plateaus of Samtskhe-Javakheti on the Turkish and Armenian borders — a region of rock-cut cities, spa towns, Ottoman-era fortresses and the cliff monastery of Vardzia.

Western Georgia, the ancient land of Colchis, running from the old capital Kutaisi and the green hills of Imereti to the subtropical Black Sea coast at Batumi and up into the high Caucasus of Svaneti and Racha. Abkhazia, in the far north-west, has been outside Tbilisi's control since the early 1990s; Russia recognises it as independent and keeps troops there, while Georgia regards it as Russian-occupied territory.

Eastern Georgia, from the capital Tbilisi on the Mtkvari River east into the Kakheti wine country of the Alazani valley and north up the Georgian Military Highway to Kazbegi — the historic heartland of the Kartli and Kakheti kingdoms, with the old royal seat of Mtskheta and the desert monasteries of David Gareja.

Germany's south-western state, bordered by France and Switzerland along the Rhine and reaching Lake Constance in the south. It joins the Swabian heartland around Stuttgart with the old grand duchy of Baden, and runs from the university towns of Heidelberg, Tübingen and Freiburg through the Black Forest to the car factories of the Neckar valley.

Germany's largest state by area, stretching from the vineyards of Franconia in the north to the Alps on the Austrian border. Once a kingdom ruled by the Wittelsbachs, it joins the capital Munich with Nuremberg, Bamberg, Regensburg and Würzburg, King Ludwig II's castles, and a strong sense of its own Catholic, beer-hall and alpine identity.

Germany's capital and the flat, thinly settled state that surrounds it on every side — the old Prussian heartland of the Mark Brandenburg, where Berlin's museums, memorials and nightlife lie within an hour of Potsdam's palaces, pine forests, some three thousand lakes and the canal villages of the Spreewald.

Germany's maritime north — the port city-states of Hamburg and Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein between the North Sea and the Baltic, and Lower Saxony's flat farmland, heath and Harz mountains, the old Hanseatic world of brick Gothic Lübeck, the tidal Wadden Sea and the dunes of Sylt, where Low German is still spoken and the wind never quite drops.

Germany's west-central heartland, where the Rhine, Main and Moselle meet among vineyards, castles and wooded uplands. It combines the banking city of Frankfurt with Roman Trier, the cathedral cities of Mainz, Worms and Speyer, the wine country of the Rheingau and the Palatinate, and the old coal-and-steel Saarland on the French border.

Germany's north-eastern corner and its most thinly settled state, with nearly 2,000 kilometres of Baltic shore counting its lagoons and islands — the Hanseatic brick towns of Wismar, Rostock and Stralsund, the chalk cliffs of Rügen and the white resort villas of Usedom on the coast, and behind them a quiet country of manor houses, rapeseed fields and more than a thousand lakes.

Germany's most populous state, with some 18 million people between the Dutch and Belgian borders and the River Weser — the Rhine cities of Cologne, Düsseldorf and Bonn, the former coal-and-steel conurbation of the Ruhr, Charlemagne's Aachen and the cathedral city of Münster, framed by the flat Münsterland and the wooded hills of the Eifel, the Sauerland and the Teutoburg Forest.

The three southern states of the former East Germany, from the Harz and the Elbe plains to the Thuringian Forest and the Ore Mountains on the Czech border — the country of Luther's Reformation, Bach's music and Goethe's Weimar, with baroque Dresden, mercantile Leipzig, the sandstone towers of Saxon Switzerland and a dense scatter of castles, cathedrals and half-timbered towns.

Ghana's Atlantic shoreline and its hinterland, from the capital Accra west past the slave-trade castles of Cape Coast and Elmina to the rainforest of Kakum, the twin port city of Sekondi-Takoradi and the palm-lined beaches of Busua and Axim — the old Gold Coast, where Europe's forts and Ghana's modern economy both stand.

The forest and cocoa belt of central Ghana, centred on Kumasi, seat of the Asante kings, and reaching east to the hills of Akuapem and Koforidua and north-west into the Bono lands around Sunyani and Techiman — the Akan heartland of gold regalia, kente looms and royal festivals.

Ghana's savanna north, five regions reaching from the Volta basin to the Burkina Faso border — the lands of the old kingdoms of Dagbon, Mamprugu, Gonja and Wa, with Tamale as their hub, elephants in Mole National Park, Sudanese-style mud mosques, and the painted compounds of the Upper East.

Ghana's eastern strip beside the Togo border, running from the Keta lagoon and the Atlantic up through the forested Akwapim-Togo hills to the savanna of the Oti Region along Lake Volta — the heartland of the Ewe, with some of Ghana's highest mountains, its tallest waterfalls and a history shaped by German and British Togoland.

Greece's centre of gravity — Athens and the Attica peninsula with Piraeus, Cape Sounion and the Saronic islands, together with the mainland region of Central Greece, where Delphi sits on the slopes of Parnassus above the Boeotian plain, Thermopylae and Lamia guard the road north, the mountains of Evrytania rise to the west and the long island of Evia closes the east. Four in ten Greeks live here.

Greece's largest island, closing off the southern Aegean with a long spine of mountains — the home of Europe's first palace civilisation at Knossos, of Venetian harbour towns at Chania and Rethymno, of deep gorges and lagoon beaches, and of a fiercely independent culture of lyra music, raki and a celebrated island diet.

The whole north of Greece, from the Prespa lakes and the Pindus to the Evros river on the Turkish border — Central, West and East Macedonia, Thrace and the monastic state of Mount Athos. Thessaloniki, the country's second city, the beaches of Halkidiki, Mount Olympus, the royal tombs of Alexander's dynasty and the Muslim minority of Thrace define a region that joined Greece only between 1912 and 1920.

The South Aegean, Greece's great island region, joining the whitewashed Cyclades in the middle of the Aegean — Santorini, Mykonos, Naxos, Paros, Milos — with the Dodecanese strung along the Turkish coast, from medieval Rhodes to Kos and the monastery island of Patmos, where Venetian, crusader and Italian pasts overlay the Greek.

The chain of green islands off Greece's western coast, from Corfu near the Albanian border south to Zakynthos off the Peloponnese — the Heptanese, or "Seven Islands", whose centuries under Venice and Britain rather than the Ottomans gave them a culture of their own, as well as olive groves, cliff-backed beaches and the Ithaca of Odysseus.

The large, green islands of the eastern Aegean lying close to the Turkish coast — Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Ikaria and Lemnos with a handful of smaller neighbours — a region of olive groves, mastic villages, ouzo and ancient poets and philosophers, less visited than the Cyclades and more closely tied to Asia Minor.

The great southern peninsula of mainland Greece, joined to Attica only by the Isthmus of Corinth, together with the northern shore of the Gulf of Patras around Messolonghi and Agrinio — a region of Mycenaean citadels, Sparta and Olympia, Frankish, Byzantine and Venetian castles, the tower villages of the Mani and the port city of Patras.

The middle of the Greek mainland on either side of the Pindus range — Thessaly, a great farming plain ringed by Olympus, Pelion and the rock pillars of Meteora and reaching into the Aegean with the Sporades islands of Skiathos, Skopelos and Alonissos; and Epirus, the wet, mountainous north-west of Ioannina, the stone villages of Zagori and the Ionian coast at Parga.

The central highlands and the slope down to the Pacific, taking in the sprawling capital, the colonial city of Antigua beneath its volcanoes, the Kaqchikel Maya towns of Chimaltenango and the hot sugar-cane lowlands of Escuintla — the country's political, economic and tourist core.

The Maya heartland of western Guatemala, running from Lake Atitlán and Chichicastenango up to Quetzaltenango, the Cuchumatanes and the Mexican border, then down to the hot Pacific lowlands — a region of K'iche', Mam, Tz'utujil and Ixil towns, market days and high volcanoes.

Guatemala's hot, largely Ladino east, from the dry Motagua valley of El Progreso and Zacapa through the Ch'orti' Maya hills of Chiquimula to the volcanic uplands of Jalapa, Jutiapa and Santa Rosa on the borders with Honduras and El Salvador — cattle country, and home to the great pilgrimage shrine of Esquipulas.

Northern and eastern Guatemala, from the rainforests and Maya cities of Petén through the misty Q'eqchi' hills of Alta and Baja Verapaz to Lake Izabal, the Río Dulce and the Garífuna town of Lívingston on the Caribbean — the country's wildest and least populated region.

Guinea's Atlantic lowlands, from the capital Conakry on its narrow peninsula north through the mangrove coast and bauxite country of Boké and inland to the hills and waterfalls around Kindia — the Susu-speaking coast where most of the country's trade, government and mining exports are concentrated.

Guinea's vast interior, from the Maninka savanna of Upper Guinea around Kankan, Faranah and the upper Niger to the forested hills of the south-east around Nzérékoré and Mount Nimba — the old heartland of the Mali Empire and of Samori Touré, and the home of Guinea's gold and iron-ore frontier.

The highland plateau of central Guinea, covering the regions of Labé and Mamou — a cool, green country of sandstone escarpments, waterfalls and Fula villages where major West African rivers rise, and the seat of the 18th-century Islamic state of Futa Jallon.

The mountainous west of Honduras, along the borders with Guatemala and El Salvador — home to the Classic Maya city of Copán, the colonial towns of Gracias and Santa Rosa de Copán, the Lenca villages of Lempira and the cloud forest of Celaque, and some of the country's finest coffee country.

Honduras's hot, humid north, from the industrial city of San Pedro Sula and the port of Puerto Cortés along the Caribbean shore to Tela and La Ceiba, with Lake Yojoa to the south and the farming valleys of Yoro inland — the old banana coast, home to Garífuna villages and rainforest-covered mountains.

The heart of Honduras, running from the capital Tegucigalpa and the old colonial capital of Comayagua through the pine-covered Lenca highlands of La Paz and Intibucá down to the hot Pacific lowlands of Choluteca and Valle on the Gulf of Fonseca — a region of mining towns, government, cool mountains and shrimp farms.

The eastern half of Honduras's Caribbean side, from the English-speaking Bay Islands of Roatán, Utila and Guanaja on the Mesoamerican Reef to the old port of Trujillo, the roadless rainforest and lagoons of La Mosquitia and the cattle country of Olancho — the country's most varied and least populated region.

The heart of Hungary around the capital, taking in Budapest, the counties of Pest, Fejér and Komárom-Esztergom, and the Danube as it swings south through the Visegrád Hills — the old royal centres of Esztergom and Székesfehérvár, the Serbian-founded town of Szentendre and the Habsburg palace at Gödöllő.

Western Hungary between the Danube and the Austrian, Slovenian and Croatian borders — seven counties of rolling hills, vineyards and old towns centred on Lake Balaton, from Győr and Sopron in the north-west to Pécs and the Villány wine country in the south. Roman, Ottoman and Habsburg history overlap here more closely than anywhere else in the country.

Hungary's hilly north-east along the Slovak border, made up of Nógrád, Heves and Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén — the Mátra and Bükk ranges, the castle town of Eger, the industrial city of Miskolc, the Aggtelek caves and the Tokaj hills, where the country's most famous sweet wine is made.

The flat eastern half of Hungary, the Alföld, spread across six counties between the Danube, the Tisza and the Romanian and Ukrainian borders — a land of grassland puszta, scattered farmsteads, paprika fields and spa towns, anchored by the university cities of Debrecen and Szeged, with Kecskemét, Nyíregyháza and Gyula.

Iceland's far side, some 650 to 700 kilometres from Reykjavík whichever way round the Ring Road — a coast of narrow fjords and fishing villages from Vopnafjörður south to Djúpivogur, the farming valley and forest around Egilsstaðir and the Lagarfljót lake, reindeer highlands rising to Snæfell, and in the south-east corner the langoustine port of Höfn beneath the outlet glaciers of Vatnajökull.

The northern third of Iceland, from the seal coasts and horse valleys of Húnaflói and Skagafjörður across the Tröllaskagi mountains to Akureyri on Eyjafjörður, the largest town outside the south-west, and east to the volcanic basin of Lake Mývatn, the whale-watching port of Húsavík and the Dettifoss canyon — drier and snowier than the south, and touching the Arctic Circle at Grímsey.

Iceland's capital and its southwest and south, from the lava fields of the Reykjanes peninsula and Keflavík airport through Reykjavík and the Golden Circle to the waterfall-lined south coast, the black beaches at Vík and the glacier lagoon at Jökulsárlón — home to two-thirds of Icelanders and to the sights most visitors see first.

Iceland's western quarter, from the saga farms of Borgarfjörður and the glacier-capped Snæfellsnes peninsula across the island-dotted bay of Breiðafjörður to the Westfjords, a ragged peninsula of flat-topped mountains, deep fjords and bird cliffs joined to the rest of the country by a neck of land seven kilometres wide — the emptiest coast in Iceland, most of it bypassed by the Ring Road.

The Hindi-speaking heartland of India, spanning Uttar Pradesh on the Ganges plain and the forested plateaus of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh — home to the Taj Mahal, the holy city of Varanasi, the Nawabi culture of Lucknow, the temples of Khajuraho and some of the country's best tiger reserves.

India's northern arc, from the capital, Delhi, across the wheat fields of Punjab and Haryana and up into the Himalayan states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, and high-altitude Ladakh — a region of Mughal monuments, the Sikh heartland, hill stations, Hindu pilgrimage towns on the Ganges and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries.

Eastern India, from the Bay of Bengal and the Ganges delta up to the Himalayan hills of Darjeeling and Sikkim, and west across Bihar and Jharkhand to the temple coast of Odisha — a region of the old imperial capital Kolkata, the birthplace of Buddhism at Bodh Gaya, tea gardens, and Puri, Konark and Bhubaneswar.

India's western seaboard and its hinterland — Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat and the small territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu — running from the salt flats of Kutch past Mumbai and the Deccan plateau to Goa's beaches, a region of trade, industry, Maratha forts, Portuguese churches and Buddhist cave temples.

India's largest state by area, stretching from the Aravalli hills west across the Thar Desert to the Pakistan border — the old Rajputana of warrior clans and princely states, whose hill forts, palaces and walled cities at Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer have made it a centre of India's heritage tourism.

A chain of hundreds of forested islands in the Bay of Bengal, far closer to Myanmar and Sumatra than to mainland India, governed as a union territory — the Andamans with Port Blair, the Cellular Jail and the beaches and reefs of Havelock and Neil, and the Nicobars to the south, home to indigenous peoples and largely closed to visitors.

The seven states east of the narrow Siliguri corridor — Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya — a region of the Brahmaputra valley, tea gardens, rainforested hills and Himalayan monasteries, home to hundreds of tribal communities and cultures closer to South-East Asia and Tibet than to the Gangetic plains.

The peninsula below the Deccan's northern edge — Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Puducherry and the Lakshadweep atolls — the Dravidian south of India, with its own languages, towering temple gateways, rice-and-coconut cooking, tech cities of Bengaluru and Hyderabad, and the lagoons and hills of Kerala.

The Lesser Sunda Islands east of Java, from Hindu Bali through Muslim Lombok and Sumbawa to the largely Christian islands of Flores, Sumba and western Timor — a chain of volcanoes that grows drier and less visited towards the east, and holds Indonesia's busiest resort island alongside the Komodo dragons.

Indonesia's most populous island and political heart, a chain of volcanoes running from Jakarta and the Sundanese uplands of West Java through the old royal courts of Yogyakarta and Solo to Surabaya and the Bromo and Ijen craters in the east — home to more than half of all Indonesians.

The Indonesian two-thirds of Borneo, a vast, thinly peopled land of rainforest, peat swamp and great brown rivers such as the Kapuas and Mahakam — home to the Dayak peoples and the Muslim river towns of the coast, to wild orangutans, to coal and palm oil, and to Nusantara, the planned new national capital under construction in East Kalimantan.

Indonesia's far east, joining the original Spice Islands of Maluku — Banda, Ambon, Ternate and Tidore — with the Indonesian western half of New Guinea, now divided into six Papuan provinces. Reefs, rainforest and glaciated mountains share the region with a long-running separatist conflict in Papua that restricts access to parts of the highlands.

The contorted, four-armed island between Borneo and Maluku, split into six provinces — from Makassar and the seafaring Bugis of the south-west and the Toraja highlands to Christian Minahasa and Manado at the northern tip — surrounded by some of the richest coral reefs in Indonesia, from Bunaken to Wakatobi and the Togean islands.

The large western island of Indonesia and its offshore groups, from Aceh at the northern tip through the Batak lands of Lake Toba and the Minangkabau highlands to Palembang and Lampung in the south, plus the tin islands of Bangka Belitung and the Riau Islands facing Singapore — a land of rainforest, volcanoes, plantations and strong regional cultures.

The heart of the plateau and the Zagros to its west, from Safavid Isfahan, the desert-edge towns of Kashan and Qom and ancient Hamadan to the Kurdish and Lur highlands of Kermanshah and Lorestan and the Bakhtiari mountains. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Iran's vast, dry east, from the pilgrim city of Mashhad and the Khorasan plains through desert Yazd and Kerman to the Lut desert, Bam and the Baluch lands on the Gulf of Oman, bordering Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Iran's south-west and Gulf coast, from Shiraz and the Achaemenid heartland of Fars through the Zagros to the oil plains of Khuzestan and the hot ports and islands of Bushehr and Hormozgan — the land of Persepolis, Elam and the Strait of Hormuz. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Iran's high, cold north-west, bordering Turkey, Iraq, Armenia and Azerbaijan — an Azerbaijani-speaking heartland around Tabriz and Ardabil, with Kurdish mountains to the south-west and Armenian monasteries in the north, and Lake Urmia at its centre. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Iran's northern band, from the capital on the southern slopes of the Alborz over the mountains to the humid, forested Caspian shore and east to the Turkmen steppe of Golestan — the country's political centre and its green, rice-growing coast. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The heart of federal Iraq, from Baghdad on the Tigris north to Mosul and the Nineveh plains and south to Babylon and the shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf, with the Anbar desert stretching west to Syria and Jordan. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel to it.

Iraq's far south, where the Tigris and Euphrates spread into the Mesopotamian marshes and join as the Shatt al-Arab on their way to the Gulf — the land of Sumer's first cities, the Marsh Arabs, date palms and oil, centred on the port city of Basra. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel to it.

The autonomous Kurdish north of Iraq, running from the plains around Erbil up into the Zagros and Taurus ranges on the Iranian and Turkish borders, with its own government and language, centred on Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dohuk. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel to it.

The Republic's southern province of Munster, from the Shannon estuary and the Burren of Clare down to the long peninsulas of Kerry and West Cork and east to Waterford — a region of mountains and Atlantic headlands, rich dairy land, fiercely contested hurling, Irish-speaking Gaeltacht villages and the cities of Cork, Limerick and Waterford.

The eastern half of the Republic, from Dublin and the Wicklow Mountains through the flat midland bogs to the lake country of Cavan and Monaghan — the old English Pale and the prehistoric Boyne Valley, the seat of government and most of the population, with medieval Kilkenny and the Wexford coast to the south.

The Republic's Atlantic northwest, from Galway city and Connemara through Mayo, Sligo and the lake country of Roscommon and Leitrim to the cliffs and glens of Donegal — the least populated, most Irish-speaking part of the country, shaped by famine and emigration and by a coastline of islands, bogs and mountains.

Israel's greenest and most mixed region, stretching from the port city of Haifa on Mount Carmel through the hills of the Galilee to the Sea of Galilee and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights — home to Acre, Nazareth, Tiberias and Safed, and to large Arab, Druze and Jewish communities living side by side.

Israel's populous heart, running from the Mediterranean beaches of Tel Aviv and ancient Jaffa across the citrus-growing coastal plain to the Judean Hills and Jerusalem — a region that holds both the secular, commercial metropolis and the contested holy city, with Ein Karem on Jerusalem's western edge and the old towns of Ramla and Lod between them.

Israel's desert south, covering more than half the country's land but a fraction of its people — from Beersheba and the coastal cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon through the Negev's craters and Nabataean ruins to Masada, the southern Dead Sea shore and the Red Sea resort of Eilat.

Two neighbouring regions on Italy's central Adriatic side, joined as one until 1963 — Abruzzo, where the highest peaks of the Apennines and three national parks drop to a coast of fishing platforms, and small, rural Molise to the south, a land of Samnite and Roman ruins, sheep tracks and hill villages.

Italy's smallest and least populous region, a single Alpine valley and its side valleys in the far north-west, walled in by Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, Monte Rosa and Gran Paradiso — a bilingual, self-governing region of castles, Roman ruins, ski resorts and mountain cheese.

A small, mountainous and thinly populated region in the instep of Italy's boot, touching both the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas — known for the cave city of Matera, the sharp peaks of the Lucanian Dolomites around Castelmezzano, the Pollino mountains in the south and the short, steep coast at Maratea.

The toe of Italy's boot, a long mountainous peninsula between the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas that ends at the Strait of Messina — a land of Greek colonies and the Riace Bronzes, forested plateaux in the Sila and Aspromonte, fishing towns such as Scilla, and cliff-top Tropea above white beaches.

Southern Italy's most populous region, curving around the Bay of Naples and the Gulf of Salerno beneath Vesuvius — the land of Naples, the buried Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the cliff villages of the Amalfi Coast, the islands of Capri and Ischia, and the Greek temples of Paestum.

The wide plain between the River Po and the northern Apennines, strung along the Roman Via Emilia from Piacenza to Rimini — a wealthy region of arcaded cities, ducal courts and Byzantine Ravenna, the home of Parmigiano, prosciutto and balsamic vinegar, and of Italy's fast-car industry and its busiest beach coast.

Italy's north-eastern corner, bordering Austria and Slovenia and running from the Carnic and Julian Alps down to the Adriatic lagoons — an autonomous region where Latin, Slavic and Germanic Europe meet, with the Habsburg port of Trieste, Venetian Udine, Roman Aquileia and Lombard Cividale.

The region around Rome in central Italy, stretching from the Tyrrhenian coast inland to the Apennines — the ancient Latium of the Latins and Etruscans, for centuries the heart of the Papal States, and beyond the capital a land of volcanic lakes, hill towns, Roman villas and Etruscan tombs, from Tivoli and Ostia Antica to the Castelli Romani and Viterbo.

The narrow arc of mountains and sea in north-west Italy, running from the French border to Tuscany with the port city of Genoa at its centre — once the heart of a maritime republic, now known for the Cinque Terre, Portofino, the flower coast around Sanremo and the home of pesto and focaccia.

Italy's most populous and richest region, stretching from the Alps across the lakes to the Po plain — the country's financial and industrial engine, centred on Milan, with the lakes of Como, Garda and Iseo, the walled hill city of Bergamo and the Renaissance court towns of Mantua and Cremona.

A region of parallel river valleys running from the Apennines down to the Adriatic in central-eastern Italy, with the port of Ancona at its centre — the former frontier "marches" of the Papal States, known for Renaissance Urbino, the Conero promontory, Ascoli Piceno's travertine squares, the Frasassi caves and a dense scatter of hill towns.

Italy's north-western corner, ringed on three sides by the Alps — the old heartland of the House of Savoy that led Italian unification, with the former royal capital of Turin, the Barolo and Barbaresco vineyards of the Langhe, the white truffles of Alba, and the western shores of Lake Maggiore and Lake Orta.

The heel of Italy's boot, a long, mostly flat region between the Adriatic and the Gulf of Taranto — a land of olive groves, white hill towns, the conical trulli of the Valle d'Itria, the baroque city of Lecce, the port of Bari and the wooded Gargano promontory in the north.

The second-largest island in the Mediterranean, lying west of the Italian mainland and south of Corsica — an autonomous region with its own language, thousands of Bronze Age nuraghe towers, the capital Cagliari, Catalan-flavoured Alghero, and a long coast running from the Costa Smeralda and the La Maddalena archipelago to the cliffs of the Gulf of Orosei.

The largest island in the Mediterranean, across the narrow Strait of Messina from the toe of Italy — an autonomous region shaped by Greeks, Arabs, Normans and Spaniards, with Palermo and Catania, the temples of Agrigento and Syracuse, the active volcano of Etna and the offshore Aeolian Islands.

Italy's northernmost region, a mountain land of two self-governing provinces — Italian-speaking Trentino around Trento and largely German-speaking South Tyrol around Bolzano — taking in much of the Dolomites, the spa town of Merano, apple orchards and vineyards along the Adige, and the northern tip of Lake Garda.

Central Italy's most visited region, running from the Apennines to the Tyrrhenian coast and the island of Elba — the birthplace of the Renaissance and of the Italian language, with Florence, Siena, Pisa and Lucca set among the vineyards of Chianti and the bare hills of the Val d'Orcia.

Italy's "green heart", the only region of the peninsula with neither a coastline nor a foreign border — a land of wooded hills, olive groves and walled hill towns between Tuscany, Lazio and the Marche, shaped by Etruscans, popes and saints, from Perugia and Assisi to Orvieto, Spoleto, Gubbio and Lake Trasimeno.

The north-eastern region that was the mainland empire of the Venetian Republic, running from the Dolomites of Cortina through the Prosecco hills and Palladio's villas to the lagoon and the Po delta — home to Venice, Verona, Padua and Vicenza, and to the eastern shore of Lake Garda.

The mountainous heart of Honshu, spanning nine prefectures from the snowy Sea of Japan coast to the Pacific plains around Nagoya — the homeland of the warlords who unified Japan, crossed by the Japanese Alps and crowned by Mount Fuji, with Kanazawa, Takayama and the thatched villages of Shirakawa-go among its valleys.

The western tip of Honshu, split by a spine of mountains into the sunny, industrial Inland Sea shore of Hiroshima and Okayama and the quiet, rural San'in coast of Tottori and Shimane — a region of the atomic-bomb memorial, Miyajima's shrine, ancient myth at Izumo and the old silver mine of Iwami.

Japan's northernmost main island and largest prefecture, a land of volcanoes, forests, dairy farms and long snowy winters that was Ainu country until Japanese settlement in the late 19th century — home to Sapporo, the port of Hakodate, Niseko's ski slopes and the wild peninsula of Shiretoko.

The historic heartland of western Honshu, stretching from the Sea of Japan to the Kii Peninsula — home to the old capitals of Nara and Kyoto, the merchant city of Osaka, the port of Kobe, and the sacred mountains of Koyasan, Kumano and Ise.

Japan's southwest, from the volcanic island of Kyushu down the Nansei island chain to subtropical Okinawa — the country's historic gateway to China, Korea and Europe, with the cities of Fukuoka and Nagasaki, active volcanoes, hot-spring towns and the distinct culture of the former Ryukyu Kingdom.

The smallest of Japan's four main islands, lying south of Honshu across the Seto Inland Sea — a mountainous, rural island of four prefectures, ringed by the 88-temple Buddhist pilgrimage and known for deep gorges, old castles, hot springs and a slower pace than the rest of the country.

The six prefectures of northern Honshu, a mountainous, snowy and thinly populated region of rice fields, castle towns and hot springs — once the frontier of the Japanese state, later the realm of the Date and Tsugaru lords, and in 2011 the coast struck by the great earthquake and tsunami.

The broad Kanto plain around Tokyo Bay and the mountains that ring it, spread across seven prefectures and home to about a third of Japan's people — the seat of the shoguns at Kamakura and Edo, the capital since 1868, and a region of shrines, hot springs and coast within reach of the city.

Jordan's populated heartland, running from the capital Amman north through the olive hills of Jerash, Ajloun and Irbid to the Syrian border, east to the basalt desert and its Umayyad castles, and south-west down to the Dead Sea, Madaba and the crusader stronghold of Karak — home to the great majority of Jordanians.

Jordan's thinly populated south, from the highland villages of Tafilah and the cliffs of the Dana Biosphere Reserve through the Nabataean city of Petra and the crusader castle of Shobak to the red sands of Wadi Rum and the country's only seaport at Aqaba — the region most visitors come to Jordan to see.

Kazakhstan's mountainous southeast, stretching from Almaty, the country's largest city, along the northern ranges of the Tian Shan to the canyons and dunes of the Chinese border and west to the old Silk Road city of Taraz — the historic Zhetysu, or "Land of Seven Rivers", and the most visited part of the country.

Kazakhstan's northern steppe and grain belt, from the planned capital Astana on the Esil river to the pine-covered hills and lakes of Burabay and the Russian-founded cities of Petropavl, Kostanay and Pavlodar — a region shaped by Soviet farming campaigns, labour camps and, since 1997, the building of a new capital.

Kazakhstan's north-eastern corner, where the Irtysh flows out of China past Öskemen and Semey and the steppe rises into the forests and snow peaks of the Kazakh Altai — a region of mining towns, Russian exiles and Kazakh poets, marked by the legacy of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site and holding the country's wildest mountain country.

The heart of the Kazakh steppe, the Saryarka, running from the coal city of Karaganda south to the northern shore of Lake Balkhash and west to the copper towns of Zhezkazgan and the Ulytau hills — a land of Soviet mines and labour camps, and of the mausoleums and legends that make Ulytau the symbolic cradle of the Kazakh nation.

Kazakhstan's far west, reaching from the Ural river and the Caspian shore across the deserts of the Mangystau peninsula and the Ustyurt Plateau to the steppe around Aktobe — the country's oil and gas heartland, a land of Cossack forts, Sufi underground mosques and some of Central Asia's strangest desert scenery.

The hot, irrigated south of Kazakhstan along the Syr Darya, from the foothills of the Western Tian Shan around Shymkent through the pilgrimage city of Turkistan to Kyzylorda, the Baikonur Cosmodrome and the shrunken Aral Sea — the most Kazakh-speaking and devout part of the country, and its oldest urban land.

Kenya's green and densely farmed west, joining the old Nyanza and Western provinces between Lake Victoria and the Ugandan border — Luo fishing country around Kisumu and the lake islands, the Gusii highlands of Kisii, and the Luhya counties of Kakamega, Vihiga, Bungoma and Busia, with Kenya's last lowland rainforest and the slopes of Mount Elgon.

Kenya's Indian Ocean shore and its hinterland — the old Coast Province of Mombasa, Kwale, Kilifi, Tana River, Lamu and Taita-Taveta — a Muslim, Swahili-speaking world of coral-stone towns, reefs and white beaches, backed by the dry bush of Tsavo and the green Taita Hills.

The old Eastern and North Eastern provinces — from Mount Kenya's eastern slopes and the farms of Meru, Embu and the Kamba counties to the dry bush of Isiolo, the deserts of Marsabit and the Somali-majority counties of Garissa, Wajir and Mandera on the Somali border, where security conditions limit travel.

The capital and the green, cool highlands to its north — the old Central Province of Kiambu, Murang'a, Nyeri, Kirinyaga and Nyandarua — rising from Nairobi's plains through tea and coffee farms to the Aberdare range and the western slopes of Mount Kenya, heartland of the Kikuyu and of the Mau Mau struggle.

Kenya's largest region, following the old Rift Valley Province from the Tanzanian border to the Ilemi Triangle — the Maasai Mara and Amboseli, the soda and freshwater lakes of the valley floor, the tea and wheat highlands of the Kalenjin running country, and the arid Turkana and Samburu north.

Northern and central Kyrgyzstan, from the capital Bishkek and the farmed Chüy valley east around Lake Issyk-Kul, west into the Talas valley and south across the high pastures of Naryn to the Chinese border — the country's political centre, its lake resorts, and its most traditional herding country.

Southern Kyrgyzstan, wrapped around the eastern rim of the Fergana Valley — the ancient bazaar city of Osh, the walnut forests and lakes of Jalal-Abad, the high Alay valley beneath the Pamirs and the tangled borders of Batken. It is hotter, more agricultural and more Uzbek-influenced than the north.

The mountainous northern half of Laos, from the royal city of Luang Prabang on the Mekong to the Chinese border, the Golden Triangle and the Plain of Jars — a land of river valleys, upland ethnic villages, old Buddhist monasteries and the scars of the Secret War.

Southern Laos, the Mekong lowlands from Savannakhet to the Cambodian border and the uplands of the Bolaven plateau and the Annamite foothills — the country of the Khmer-era temple of Wat Phou, coffee farms and waterfalls, the river islands of Si Phan Don and the old Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The central belt of Laos, from the capital Vientiane on the Mekong across the plains facing Thailand and up into the karst country of Vang Vieng, Xaisomboun and Khammouane — the seat of government, the country's most urban corner, and a limestone landscape of caves and river valleys.

The eastern half of Latvia — Vidzeme's rolling uplands, castles and Gauja valley in the north, and Latgale's lakes, Catholic churches and Russian-speaking towns in the south-east along the borders with Russia and Belarus — a land of forests and farms far quieter than the capital.

The western half of Latvia — the capital Riga and its commuter belt, the farming plain of Zemgale and the forested peninsula of Kurzeme — once the heartland of the Duchy of Courland, with Hanseatic Riga, the resort of Jūrmala, Rundāle Palace, the ports of Liepāja and Ventspils and a long, empty Baltic coast.

The inland counties of Liberia, an arc of rainforest, farmland and hills from Gbarpolu and Lofa on the Guinea and Sierra Leone borders through Bong and Nimba to Grand Gedeh and River Gee near Côte d'Ivoire — home to the Kpelle, Mano, Gio, Loma, Krahn and other peoples, and to Liberia's highest mountains and iron-ore ranges.

The Atlantic seaboard of Liberia, running from Grand Cape Mount on the Sierra Leone border through Monrovia and the old settler ports of Buchanan and Greenville to Harper and Cape Palmas near Côte d'Ivoire — the counties where the 19th-century settlements were founded and where the Vai, Bassa, Kru and Grebo live.

Libya's vast eastern half, from Benghazi and the forested Green Mountain, with the Greek cities of Cyrene and Apollonia, east to Tobruk and the Egyptian border and south across the desert to the oases of Awjila, Jufra and Kufra — the old Senussi heartland and today the base of the eastern government and its armed forces. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Libya's desert southwest, a land of sand seas, oasis valleys and rock plateaus centred on the town of Sabha, home to the ancient Garamantes and today to Arab, Tuareg and Tebu communities, with the Ubari lakes, the rock art of the Acacus near Ghat, the Murzuq sand sea and the country's largest oilfield. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Libya's populous northwest, from the capital Tripoli along the coast to Misrata and Sirte and inland to the Nafusa mountains and the oasis of Ghadames — the land of the Roman cities of Leptis Magna and Sabratha, and today the seat of a Tripoli-based government amid rival armed groups. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Lithuania's western half — the port of Klaipėda, the Curonian Spit and the resort of Palanga on the Baltic, the upland lakes of Samogitia, Šiauliai and the Hill of Crosses in the north, and the farm country of Suvalkija in the south-west — a region shaped by Prussia, the sea and a fiercely independent Samogitian identity.

Lithuania's larger eastern half — the Baroque capital Vilnius, the interwar capital Kaunas and the lake and forest country of Aukštaitija and Dzūkija stretching to the Latvian and Belarusian borders — the historic core of the Grand Duchy, with Trakai's island castle, spa towns and most of the country's national parks.

The rain-soaked east of Madagascar, from the forested escarpment of Andasibe down to the port of Toamasina and north along a coast of lagoons, clove groves and islands to the Masoala peninsula — Betsimisaraka country, with the rice bowl of Lake Alaotra inland and whales off Île Sainte-Marie each winter.

The heart of Madagascar's high plateau, around 1,200 to 1,500 metres up, taking in the capital Antananarivo, the royal hill of Ambohimanga, the spa town of Antsirabe and the volcanic country around Lake Itasy — the homeland of the Merina kingdom, and a landscape of rice paddies, red earth and brick villages.

The southern part of Madagascar's plateau and the coast below it, from the woodcarving town of Ambositra through Fianarantsoa and Ambalavao to the rainforest of Ranomafana and the south-east shore at Manakara — Betsileo rice-terrace country, with vineyards, granite domes and a railway that descends from the plateau to the sea.

The hot, dry south and south-west of Madagascar, from Morondava's baobabs through the port of Toliara and the reef-sheltered fishing villages of Ifaty and Anakao to the spiny forest of the far south and Fort Dauphin on the south-east corner — land of the Sakalava, Vezo, Mahafaly, Antandroy and Antanosy, reached by the RN7 past the Isalo massif.

Madagascar's northern tip and north-west coast, from the harbour city of Diego Suarez and the vanilla country of Sava down to Mahajanga on the Mozambique Channel — Sakalava and Antankarana land, with the island resort of Nosy Be, the limestone tsingy of Ankarana and the dry forests of Ankarafantsika.

Malawi's most populous region, reaching from the lake's southern shores at Cape Maclear and Mangochi down the Shire River valley to the Mozambican border, with the commercial city of Blantyre, the old colonial capital of Zomba, the tea estates of Thyolo and the granite massif of Mount Mulanje.

Malawi's Chewa heartland and political centre, a broad plateau of maize and tobacco farms around the capital, Lilongwe, that drops east to the lakeshore at Salima and Nkhotakota — home to the Chongoni rock art near Dedza and the elephant country of Kasungu and Nkhotakota.

Malawi's least populated region, running from the Tanzanian border at Karonga down the northern shore of Lake Malawi to the Viphya highlands — a land of Tumbuka, Tonga and Ngoni country, the Livingstonia mission on its escarpment, the grasslands of the Nyika plateau and the lake islands of Likoma and Chizumulu.

The heart of Peninsular Malaysia's west coast — the capital Kuala Lumpur, the government city of Putrajaya, the populous state of Selangor that surrounds them, and Negeri Sembilan to the south, whose Minangkabau heritage sets it apart. It is the country's economic and political core.

The southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia, made up of the small historic state of Malacca on the strait that bears its name and the large state of Johor, which faces Singapore across the Johor Strait. It holds the cradle of the Malay sultanates, a colonial port town and a fast-growing border metropolis.

The north-western corner of Peninsular Malaysia, from the Thai border through the rice plains of Perlis and Kedah to the island of Penang and the old tin state of Perak — a region of Chinese shophouse towns, Malay sultanates, limestone karst and the resort island of Langkawi.

The northern tip of Borneo, made up of the state of Sabah and the small federal territory of Labuan offshore — a land of Indigenous Kadazan-Dusun, Bajau and Murut peoples, rainforest rivers full of wildlife, coral reefs and Mount Kinabalu, one of the highest peaks in Southeast Asia.

Malaysia's largest state, covering the north-west of Borneo from Kuching to the Brunei border — a land of great rivers, rainforest and limestone caves, ruled for a century by the Brooke "White Rajahs" and home to the Iban, Bidayuh, Melanau and Orang Ulu peoples alongside large Chinese and Malay communities.

The eastern side of Peninsular Malaysia, facing the South China Sea, made up of Kelantan and Terengganu in the north and the large state of Pahang, which reaches inland to the Titiwangsa mountains. It is the Malay heartland of the peninsula, with coral islands offshore and old rainforest and cool highlands in the interior.

Mali's greener, wetter south — the capital Bamako on the Niger, the Mandé heartland where the medieval Mali Empire began, the cotton and mango country of Sikasso and the Senegal River basin around Kayes — home to most Malians and, though not spared by the insurgency, the part of the country where ordinary life continues most fully.

Central Mali, where the Niger spreads into its vast inland delta before bending north towards the desert — the land of the Djenné mosque, the river port of Mopti, the Dogon villages of the Bandiagara escarpment and the old Bambara capital of Ségou, and since 2015 the main battleground of Mali's insurgency.

Northern Mali, more than half the country's land but a small share of its people — the Niger Bend with Timbuktu and Gao, the desert plains of Taoudénit, the Adrar des Ifoghas around Kidal and Ménaka in the east — once the heart of the Songhai Empire and the trans-Saharan trade, and since 2012 the scene of rebellion and jihadist war.

Mauritania's Atlantic side, from the capital Nouakchott and the dune country of Trarza up the empty coast of the Banc d'Arguin to Nouadhibou on the Cap Blanc peninsula — home to over a third of the population, the fishing ports that feed the economy and one of the world's great wintering grounds for shorebirds.

Mauritania's Saharan heart and far north, from the sandstone plateaus of the Adrar and Tagant, with the caravan towns of Chinguetti, Ouadane and Tichitt, to the iron-ore mountains of Zouérat — a land of palm-grove oases, dune seas, manuscript libraries and the Richat 'Eye of the Sahara', and the core of the country's desert travel.

Mauritania's Sahelian south, stretching from the farmed floodplain of the Senegal river at Kaédi and Boghé across Assaba and the Hodh plains to Néma and Oualata near the Malian border — the country's greenest land, home to its Afro-Mauritanian peoples and to the ruins of the medieval trading cities of Ghana.

The long, narrow peninsula of Mexico's far northwest, divided into the states of Baja California and Baja California Sur — a land of desert, mountain ranges and two coasts, running from the border city of Tijuana and the Ensenada wine valleys down to the whale lagoons, La Paz and the resorts of Los Cabos.

Mexico's southernmost state, on the Guatemalan border, rising from the Pacific plain of the Soconusco to cool Maya highlands and falling again to the rainforest of the Lacandon jungle — home of the Classic Maya city of Palenque, the colonial town of San Cristóbal de las Casas and the 1994 Zapatista uprising.

West-central Mexico's Pacific states — Jalisco, Colima, Michoacán and Nayarit — running from the volcanic highlands, lakes and agave fields around Guadalajara and Morelia down to the beaches of Puerto Vallarta, the Riviera Nayarit and Manzanillo; the home of mariachi, tequila and the Purépecha world of Lake Pátzcuaro.

The high volcanic basin at the heart of Mexico and the states around it — Mexico City, México, Morelos, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala and Puebla — where Teotihuacan and the Aztec capital rose, where New Spain was governed, and where a large share of the country's people now live beneath Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl.

Mexico's industrial northeast — the states of Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas — stretching from the Chihuahuan desert and the limestone ranges of the Sierra Madre Oriental to the Gulf of Mexico, with the wealthy manufacturing city of Monterrey at its centre and a long border with Texas.

Mexico's south-western states of Oaxaca and Guerrero, where the Sierra Madre del Sur drops to a long Pacific coast — the most Indigenous corner of the country, home of the Zapotec city of Monte Albán, colonial Oaxaca, mezcal and mole, and beach towns from Acapulco and Zihuatanejo to Puerto Escondido and Huatulco.

Mexico's big northwestern states — Sonora, Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango — reaching from the US border and the Sonoran desert across the Sierra Madre Occidental and its Copper Canyon to the Pacific coast at Mazatlán; a land of ranching, mining, irrigated farms, Rarámuri villages and the heartland of Pancho Villa's revolution.

The high plateau north of Mexico City — Guanajuato, Querétaro, Aguascalientes, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí — where colonial silver built some of the country's finest baroque cities, the independence war began in 1810, and a modern car and aerospace industry now spreads across the farmland, with the tropical Huasteca waterfalls on its eastern edge.

The flat limestone peninsula that forms Mexico's south-eastern tip, divided into the states of Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Campeche — a land without surface rivers, drained by cenotes, where Maya cities such as Chichén Itzá and Calakmul stood, where Yucatec Maya is still widely spoken, and where Cancún and the Caribbean coast draw more foreign visitors than anywhere else in Mexico.

The states of Veracruz and Tabasco along Mexico's Gulf coast, from the cloud forests and volcanoes of the eastern Sierra Madre down to lowland rivers and wetlands — the Olmec heartland, the landing place of the Spanish conquest, Mexico's oldest port and the country's oil and cacao country.

The forested north and the green Khangai heartland, from Lake Khövsgöl and the taiga on the Russian border south through Bulgan and the mining city of Erdenet to the Orkhon valley of Arkhangai and Övörkhangai. This was the seat of the steppe empires, and it holds Karakorum, Erdene Zuu and the country's richest pastures.

Mongolia's far west, running from the glaciers of the Altai on the Russian and Chinese borders across the Great Lakes Depression to the Khangai foothills of Zavkhan and the desert edge of Govi-Altai. It is the country's most ethnically mixed corner, home to Kazakh eagle hunters and the western Mongol peoples.

The southern and eastern half of Mongolia — the Gobi provinces from Bayankhongor to the Chinese border and the grasslands of Sükhbaatar and Dornod, with the forested Khentii mountains in the north-east. It holds the country's dinosaur beds, its biggest mines and the homeland of Genghis Khan.

The capital and the provinces around it — Töv, which encircles Ulaanbaatar, and Selenge and Darkhan-Uul to the north along the railway to Russia. Home to about half of all Mongolians, it combines the country's only true metropolis with forested hills, the Tuul and Selenge river valleys and its best-known monasteries and monuments.

Southern Morocco below the High Atlas, from the Atlantic resort of Agadir and the Souss plain through the Anti-Atlas to the kasbahs, palm oases and gorges of Ouarzazate, the Drâa and the Tafilalet, and out to the Saharan dunes of Merzouga and the desert town of Guelmim. It is the country's Amazigh south and its gateway to the Sahara.

The northern interior of Morocco, from the Saïss plain and the imperial cities of Fès and Meknès up into the cedar-covered Middle Atlas around Ifrane and east to Taza — the country's old religious and scholarly heartland, with Roman Volubilis and the shrine town of Moulay Idriss between the two cities.

West-central Morocco, from the Atlantic ports of Safi and Essaouira across the Haouz plain to Marrakech and up into the High Atlas around Mount Toubkal, then north-east along the mountain front to Béni Mellal, the Tadla plain and Khénifra. It is the country's tourist heartland and its highest mountain country.

Morocco's eastern region, running along the closed Algerian border from the Mediterranean coast at Saïdia and Nador through Oujda and the Beni Snassen mountains to the high steppe plateaux and the desert oasis of Figuig. It is the country's least visited region, shaped by the border, emigration and a culture shared with western Algeria.

The Atlantic heart of modern Morocco, running along the coast from Kénitra through the twin cities of Rabat and Salé to Casablanca and El Jadida, with the farming plains of the Gharb, Chaouia and Doukkala behind. It holds the capital, the largest city and the country's economic spine.

Morocco's northern tip, where Africa faces Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar — the port city of Tangier, Andalusian-flavoured Tétouan, the blue-washed mountain town of Chefchaouen and the green ridges of the Rif, running east to the Mediterranean coast at Al Hoceïma. It is the most Spanish-influenced corner of the country.

Central Mozambique, the provinces of Sofala, Manica, Tete and Zambézia, where the Zambezi crosses the country to the sea — a region of the port city of Beira, the restored wildlife of Gorongosa, the Chimanimani mountains on the Zimbabwean border, the Cahora Bassa dam and the coconut coast around Quelimane.

Northern Mozambique, the provinces of Nampula, Niassa and Cabo Delgado — a Swahili-influenced coast of old stone towns and coral islands, the Makhuwa heartland around Nampula, and the remote wilderness and lakeshore of Niassa, with Cabo Delgado in the far north affected by an Islamist insurgency since 2017.

Mozambique's southern third, from the capital Maputo and the South African border up the Limpopo valley and along the Indian Ocean coast of Gaza and Inhambane to Vilankulo — the country's most developed region and its main beach coast, with Tofo's whale sharks, the Bazaruto islands and Ponta do Ouro.

Myanmar's mountainous north and north-west — Kachin State under the eastern Himalaya, the Chindwin valley of Sagaing and the Chin hills on the Indian border — a region of mostly Christian hill peoples, jade and amber mines, and some of the heaviest fighting since the 2021 coup. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Myanmar's western seaboard — the long Rakhine coast on the Bay of Bengal, once the kingdom of Arakan and later the scene of the Rohingya expulsion, and the low, flat rice lands of the Ayeyarwady delta west of Yangon, devastated by Cyclone Nargis in 2008. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The eastern and southern borderlands facing Thailand, Laos and China — the Shan plateau with Inle Lake, the small hill state of Kayah, Karen and Mon country around the Thanlwin mouth, and the long Tanintharyi coast running south to the Mergui archipelago. Much of it is contested between the army and ethnic armed groups. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The Bamar heartland along the Ayeyarwady, from the delta-edge city of Yangon north through Bago, the capital Naypyidaw and the dry zone to Mandalay and the temple plain of Bagan — the historical heartland of the Burmese kingdoms. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Namibia's populous, well-watered north — the four Owambo regions around Oshakati and Ondangwa, the Etosha pan on their southern edge, the Kavango river towns along the Angolan border and the long Zambezi region, the former Caprivi Strip — home to a large share of all Namibians and to landscapes of floodplain, mopane and river quite unlike the desert south.

Namibia's southern half, the Hardap and Karas regions — the red dunes of Sossusvlei and the Naukluft mountains in the west, the sheep and cattle country of Mariental and Keetmanshoop in the middle, the Fish River Canyon and the Orange river on the South African border, and the diamond coast of Lüderitz and Kolmanskop. It is Nama country and the first part of Namibia colonised by Germany.

Namibia's north-west, made up of the Erongo and Kunene regions — the fog-bound Atlantic coast from the port of Walvis Bay and German-built Swakopmund up the Skeleton Coast to the Kunene river, and inland the granite and basalt ranges of Damaraland and Kaokoland, with the Brandberg, Twyfelfontein's engravings, desert-adapted elephants and the Himba.

The central highlands of Namibia — the capital Windhoek in the Khomas hills, the cattle country and game reserves of Otjozondjupa around the Waterberg plateau, and the Omaheke sandveld running east to the Botswana border — the country's political centre and the landscape where the Herero war of 1904 was fought.

Nepal's eastern province, Koshi, climbing from the rice plains and industrial towns of the Terai around Biratnagar through Ilam's tea hills to the Khumbu, Makalu and Kanchenjunga — home of the Sherpa, Rai and Limbu peoples and of the trail to the foot of Everest.

The heart of Nepal, running from the Kathmandu Valley's three old royal cities and the Langtang Himal on the Tibetan border down through Chitwan's jungle to the flat Madhesh plains around Janakpur and Birgunj — the country's political centre, its Newar heartland and its main trade gateway to India.

The western half of Nepal, taking in Lumbini, Karnali and Sudurpashchim provinces — from the Buddha's birthplace and the Tharu villages and tiger forests of the western Terai up through the Mahabharat hills to Rara Lake, Dolpo and Humla, the least visited and poorest corner of the country.

Gandaki Province in central-western Nepal, running from the lakeside city of Pokhara and the Gurung and Magar hill country up to the Annapurna and Manaslu ranges and over them into the dry, Tibetan-Buddhist valleys of Manang and Mustang — Nepal's most popular trekking country and the cradle of the Shah dynasty at Gorkha.

The peninsula between the North Sea and the IJsselmeer, running from Amsterdam and Haarlem up through the polders and old Zuiderzee ports to Den Helder and the island of Texel — the heartland of the Golden Age trading republic, with windmills, cheese towns and dunes within an hour of the capital.

The most populous Dutch province, stretching from the North Sea dunes and bulb fields inland to the river delta — home to the seat of government at The Hague, the port city of Rotterdam, the old university and craft towns of Leiden, Delft and Gouda, and the windmills of Kinderdijk.

The three northern provinces of Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe — a wide, thinly populated land of terp villages, lakes, heath and peat colonies facing the Wadden Sea, with its own Frisian language, the university city of Groningen and some of the oldest monuments in the country.

The three southern provinces of Zeeland, North Brabant and Limburg — historically Catholic and closer in spirit to Flanders than to Holland, running from the islands and dams of the Scheldt delta through the industrial cities of Brabant to the hills and Roman-era city of Maastricht in the far south.

The centre and east of the Netherlands, from the cathedral city of Utrecht across the forests and heaths of the Veluwe and the great rivers to the Hanseatic towns of the IJssel, the lakes of Overijssel and the reclaimed land of Flevoland — higher, drier and more wooded than the coastal west.

The top of New Zealand's North Island, from the harbours and volcanic cones of Auckland, the country's largest city, up the long subtropical peninsula of Northland to Cape Reinga — the region where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, with kauri forest, island-studded bays and some of the country's warmest weather.

The broad eastern side of New Zealand's South Island, from the rebuilt city of Christchurch and volcanic Banks Peninsula across the Canterbury Plains to the Southern Alps, Aoraki / Mount Cook and the lakes of the Mackenzie Basin, plus the remote Chatham Islands far out in the Pacific, homeland of the Moriori.

The top and west of New Zealand's South Island — the sunny, vineyard-filled north around Nelson and Blenheim, the drowned valleys of the Marlborough Sounds and the golden coast of Abel Tasman, and the long, rain-soaked West Coast of gold and coal towns, pancake rocks, rainforest and glaciers.

The deep south of New Zealand's South Island, from the lakes and mountains of Queenstown and Wānaka and the gold-rush and vineyard country of Central Otago to Scottish-founded Dunedin, the wild Catlins coast, the fiords of Fiordland and Stewart Island / Rakiura at the country's southern edge.

The centre of New Zealand's North Island, from the dairy country of the Waikato and the Coromandel Peninsula to the sunny Bay of Plenty coast and the volcanic plateau around Rotorua and Lake Taupō — the homeland of the Kīngitanga, of Te Arawa and Tūwharetoa, and the country's geothermal heart.

The southern half of New Zealand's North Island, from the harbour capital of Wellington through the Wairarapa and Manawatū to Taranaki's lone volcano, the Whanganui River, Art Deco Napier in Hawke's Bay and Gisborne on the East Cape — a region of wine, sheep country and some of the country's most important Treaty history.

Nicaragua's hot, volcanic Pacific strip, running from the Gulf of Fonseca past León and Managua to Granada, Lake Nicaragua and the surf beaches near the Costa Rican border — the most populated part of the country, home to its colonial cities, its capital and most of its history.

The eastern half of Nicaragua, made up of the two autonomous Caribbean coast regions and the department of Río San Juan — a wet, thinly populated land of rainforest, rivers, lagoons and offshore islands, home to Miskito, Creole, Mayangna, Rama and Garífuna communities and to Nicaragua's English-speaking Caribbean culture.

The cooler, mountainous interior of Nicaragua, from the coffee country of Matagalpa and Jinotega and the tobacco town of Estelí up to the pine-covered Segovias on the Honduran border, with the cattle plains of Boaco and Chontales to the south-east — the land of Sandino, of the Contra war and of the country's best coffee and cigars.

The Saharan north and east of Niger — the caravan city of Agadez, the volcanic Aïr mountains, the sand sea of the Ténéré, the uranium towns of Arlit and the salt oases of Bilma, and in the far south-east the dry Lake Chad basin around Diffa — more than half the country's land, thinly peopled by Tuareg, Toubou, Kanuri and Fula.

The densely farmed Hausa belt along Niger's border with Nigeria, running from Tahoua and Birni-N'Konni through the trading city of Maradi to the old sultanate capital of Zinder — home to about half of all Nigeriens, the country's granary and market heartland, with pastures and Tuareg country to the north.

The only part of Niger watered by the Niger river, running from the Mali and Burkina Faso borders through the capital Niamey to the Zarma country of Dosso and the Benin frontier — home to the W national park and the last West African giraffes at Kouré, and also the front line of the country's western insurgency.

Nigeria's North Central zone, the Middle Belt between the Muslim north and the Christian south, taking in the planned capital Abuja, the cool Jos Plateau, the Niger–Benue confluence at Lokoja and the farmlands of Benue, Kwara and Niger — a mosaic of many small peoples and a region scarred by farmer–herder violence.

Nigeria's South-South zone, running from the royal city of Benin through the creeks and mangroves of the Niger Delta to Calabar and the Cameroon highlands — the source of the country's oil wealth, home to the Edo, Ijaw, Urhobo, Ibibio and Efik peoples, and a land of rainforest, rivers and old trading ports.

The Igbo heartland east of the Niger, covering Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo — a densely settled land of palm-fringed farmland, trading cities and hills, shaped by the ancient Nri and Igbo-Ukwu cultures, the Biafran war and an entrepreneurial spirit felt in the markets of Onitsha and Aba.

Nigeria's North West zone, the Hausa-Fulani heartland of savanna and Sahel stretching from Kaduna to the Niger border — the land of the old walled trading cities of Kano, Katsina and Zaria and of the Sokoto Caliphate, deeply Muslim, densely populated and now badly affected by armed banditry and kidnapping.

Nigeria's Yoruba heartland, running from the lagoons and megacity of Lagos inland through Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti — the country's commercial engine, home of the ancient kingdoms of Ife and Oyo, and a land of forested hills, granite outcrops and sacred groves.

Nigeria's North East zone, the largest of the six, stretching from the shrinking shores of Lake Chad through the savanna of Borno, Yobe, Bauchi and Gombe to the Mandara Mountains, the Mambilla Plateau and the forests of Gashaka-Gumti — the old heart of Kanem-Bornu and, since 2009, the centre of the Boko Haram insurgency.

North Korea's southern provinces along the Demilitarized Zone and the Yellow Sea — the old Koryo capital of Kaesong, the truce village of Panmunjom, and the Hwanghae farmlands around Sariwon and Haeju, the country's main grain belt. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The capital Pyongyang and the western lowlands between the Taedong estuary and the Yalu River border with China — the political showcase of the state, its best-supplied cities, the Myohyang mountains and the border city of Sinuiju. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

North Korea's cold, mountainous far north, running along the Yalu and Tumen rivers from the Chagang highlands past Mount Paektu to the Rason zone on the Russian border — a region of forests, mines, border trade and the state's founding legends. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The eastern side of North Korea, where the Taebaek and Hamgyong ranges drop to the Sea of Japan — the port of Wonsan, the industrial city of Hamhung, the Kumgang mountains near the DMZ and a long coast of beaches and fishing towns. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Norway's western seaboard, from the flat farmland of Jæren and the oil city of Stavanger north past Bergen to Ålesund and the Romsdal coast — a region of deep fjords, glaciers and cliff-top hikes, the old Hanseatic trade in fish and the modern offshore oil and salmon industries.

The long Arctic north of mainland Norway, stretching from the Helgeland coast across the Arctic Circle to Lofoten, Tromsø, the North Cape and the Russian border at Kirkenes — a land of fishing islands, midnight sun and polar night, the Northern Lights and the heartland of the Sámi people.

Norway's most populous region, running from the capital and the shores of the Oslofjord north through the farming valleys and forests of the interior to the high plateaus of Rondane and Jotunheimen — the country's political and economic centre, its skiing heartland and the setting of the 1814 constitution.

The southern tip of Norway, from the Viking burial grounds of Vestfold along the Skagerrak coast of white wooden towns to Lindesnes, and inland through the lakes, valleys and mountains of Telemark and Agder — the country's summer holiday coast and the cradle of modern skiing and its early hydro-electric industry.

The county at Norway's narrow middle, wrapped around the Trondheimsfjord and running from the copper-mining uplands of Røros to the islands of the Atlantic coast — the medieval heart of the Norwegian kingdom and church, centred on Trondheim and its cathedral over the tomb of St Olav.

Oman's northern exclave, a mountainous peninsula separated from the rest of the country by the United Arab Emirates and jutting into the Strait of Hormuz — a land of bare limestone ridges plunging into fjord-like inlets, reached by dhow from the small port of Khasab, with the heights of Jebel Harim above and a scattering of isolated fishing villages below.

Oman's crowded north coast, where the capital Muscat is wedged between bare mountains and the Gulf of Oman and the flat, palm-lined Batinah plain runs north-west past Sohar towards the UAE border — the country's political and commercial heart, home to around half its people, with old forts, souqs and date gardens beneath the Hajar range.

The inland heart of northern Oman, stretching from Nizwa and the high Hajar peaks of Jebel Akhdar and Jebel Shams west across the gravel plains of Ibri to the Buraimi oasis on the UAE border — the old land of the Ibadi imams, of mud-brick forts, falaj-watered palm oases and terraced mountain villages.

Oman's far south and its empty centre — the Dhofar mountains and the coastal plain of Salalah, turned green each summer by the khareef monsoon, and the flat desert and long Arabian Sea shore of Al Wusta — the ancient home of the frankincense trade, of South Arabian languages and of a region that long stood apart from northern Oman.

Oman's eastern corner, where the Hajar mountains fall to the dunes of the Wahiba Sands and the coast bends round Ras al Hadd at the tip of Arabia — the dhow-building port of Sur, the turtle beaches of Ras al Jinz, the palm-filled gorge of Wadi Bani Khalid and the long, wind-blown island of Masirah.

Pakistan's largest and least populated province, a land of deserts, bare mountains and the long Makran coast between Iran, Afghanistan and the Arabian Sea — rich in gas and minerals, home to Baloch, Brahui and Pashtun peoples, and troubled by a long separatist insurgency. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The mountainous far north of Pakistan, where the Karakoram, Himalaya and Hindu Kush meet around K2, Nanga Parbat and the Hunza valley, with the forested hills of Azad Kashmir to the south. Both territories are administered by Pakistan and claimed by India as part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan's southern province, the lower Indus valley and delta between the Kirthar hills and the Thar desert — home to the port megacity of Karachi, the Bronze Age city of Mohenjo-daro, the tombs of Makli, and a Sindhi culture of Sufi poetry, shrines and block-printed ajrak cloth.

Pakistan's most populous province and its capital territory, spreading across the fertile plains of the Indus tributaries from the Margalla Hills to the Cholistan desert — home to Mughal Lahore, planned Islamabad, garrison Rawalpindi, the Buddhist ruins of Taxila and the Sufi shrines of Multan.

Pakistan's north-western province, the Pashtun heartland along the Afghan border, running from the Peshawar valley and the Khyber Pass up to the Hindu Kush valleys of Swat and Chitral — the old land of Gandhara, now a mix of mountain resorts and insurgency-hit border districts. For those former tribal districts, this page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Western Panama along the Costa Rican border, where the Chiriquí highlands, Volcán Barú and the coffee town of Boquete sit above the Pacific plains of David, and the Caribbean province of Bocas del Toro spreads across a reef-fringed archipelago and banana country, including the Naso Tjër Di comarca.

Eastern Panama towards the Colombian border, joining the self-governed Guna Yala comarca, a strip of Caribbean coast and hundreds of small islands, with Darién province and the Emberá-Wounaan comarca, a region of rainforest, rivers and Indigenous villages where the Pan-American Highway ends at Yaviza.

The narrow waist of Panama where the canal crosses the isthmus, taking in the capital on the Pacific, the Caribbean port of Colón and the newer province of Panamá Oeste — the country's economic core, with colonial Casco Viejo, the locks at Miraflores and Agua Clara, and the Spanish forts of Portobelo.

Panama's rural heartland between the canal and Chiriquí, taking in the provinces of Coclé, Veraguas, Herrera and Los Santos and the Ngäbe-Buglé comarca — cattle and sugar country, the folklore towns of the Azuero Peninsula, the crater town of El Valle de Antón, and the Pacific islands of Coiba.

The northern mainland of Papua New Guinea, known as Momase, running from the industrial port of Lae and the Huon Gulf past Madang's reefs and volcanic islands to the great Sepik river and the Indonesian border at Vanimo — the former heart of German New Guinea and home to the country's most famous carving traditions.

The southern coast and hinterland of mainland Papua New Guinea, from the capital Port Moresby and the Owen Stanley Range to the island-strewn waters of Milne Bay, the volcanic coast of Oro and the swamps and rivers of the Gulf and Western provinces — the country's political centre and the heartland of its Second World War story.

The mountainous spine of mainland Papua New Guinea, a chain of fertile valleys between 1,500 and 2,500 metres that holds a large share of the country's people — the land of early farming, the Goroka and Mount Hagen shows, the Huli of Hela and Mount Wilhelm, and of the tribal fighting that now troubles its western provinces.

The islands off Papua New Guinea's northeast coast — New Britain, New Ireland and the Admiralty Islands of Manus in the Bismarck Archipelago, and Bougainville in the Solomon chain — a volcanic, reef-fringed region of cocoa and copra villages, the Tolai heartland around Rabaul, and the autonomous region of Bougainville.

Eastern Paraguay, the green, well-watered country between the Paraguay and Paraná rivers where nearly all Paraguayans live — the capital Asunción, the Jesuit mission ruins of the south, the border boom town of Ciudad del Este beside the Itaipú dam, the hill towns of the Cordillera and the forests and soy fields running to the Brazilian frontier.

Paraguay's western region beyond the Paraguay river, more than half the national territory but home to only a few per cent of its people — a hot, flat land of palm savanna, thorn forest and saline lagoons, the battleground of the Chaco War, now shared by Indigenous peoples, cattle ranchers and the German-speaking Mennonite colonies around Filadelfia.

Peru's far south, where the white stone city of Arequipa sits beneath its volcanoes, the Colca and Cotahuasi canyons cut into the Andes, and the desert valleys of Moquegua and Tacna run down to the Chilean border — a proud, dry, sunlit region of picanterías, pisco and copper.

Peru's green north-east, dropping from the highland valley of Cajamarca and the cloud forests of Chachapoyas through the lowlands of San Martín to the Amazon river ports of Iquitos and Pucallpa — a vast, thinly peopled region of pre-Inca fortresses, waterfalls, rainforest reserves and river life.

The southern Andes and Amazon of Peru — the old Inca capital of Cusco with the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu below it, the Peruvian shore of Lake Titicaca around Puno, the canyons of Apurímac and the rainforest of Madre de Dios. It is the country's most visited region and the heartland of Quechua and Aymara culture.

The desert coast of central Peru, from the capital Lima and its port of Callao south through Ica's vineyards, dunes and the Nazca lines, and north-east into the high Andes of Ancash — a region that holds much of the country's population, some of the Americas' oldest cities and Peru's highest mountain.

The Andes east of Lima, from the mining towns of Pasco and the farming valley of the Mantaro around Huancayo south to colonial Ayacucho and Huancavelica, and down to the jungle edge at Tingo María — a Quechua-speaking heartland of crafts and festivals that bore the worst of the Shining Path conflict.

Peru's northern coastal plain, from Trujillo and Chiclayo up through the Piura desert to the Ecuadorian border at Tumbes — the land of the Moche, Sicán and Chimú, whose adobe pyramids and royal tombs rival the Inca sites, with a warmer sea, surf beaches and a proud regional kitchen.

The long southeastern peninsula of Luzon and its islands of Catanduanes and Masbate — volcano country dominated by the cone of Mayon, a coconut-and-chilli food culture, a deeply Marian Catholic faith centred on Naga, and a Pacific coast that takes the brunt of many typhoons.

The crowded heart of Luzon, taking in the capital region, the rice plains and volcanoes of Central Luzon and the industrial, lake-and-volcano country of Calabarzon to the south — the seat of Spanish and American power, the birthplace of the 1898 republic, and home to well over a quarter of all Filipinos.

The large southern island of the Philippines and the archipelagos around it — home to the country's Muslim sultanates and Indigenous lumad peoples as well as generations of Christian settlers, with Davao, Mount Apo, Siargao and Camiguin in the calmer east and north, and a west and southwest shaped by a long conflict and a peace process in the Bangsamoro region.

The northern third of Luzon, from the Ilocos coast across the pine-covered Cordillera to the Cagayan valley and out to the Batanes islands — a region of Ifugao rice terraces, highland peoples who largely resisted Spanish rule, Ilocano farming towns and the colonial streets of Vigan.

The island region southwest of Luzon — Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and the long, thinly settled province of Palawan between the South China Sea and the Sulu Sea — known for karst islands, coral reefs and the Tagbanwa and Mangyan peoples, and among the least developed and most biologically rich parts of the country.

The central island group of the Philippines, from Panay and Negros through Cebu and Bohol to Leyte and Samar on the Pacific — where Magellan landed and Spain first settled, where sugar built the mansions of Iloilo and Negros, and where the country's busiest beaches, dive sites and January festivals are found.

Poland's northern tier along the Baltic, from the Oder mouth and Szczecin in the west through Kashubia to the Tricity of Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia, and inland down the Vistula to Toruń — a land of Hanseatic ports, Teutonic brick castles, sandy beaches, moving dunes and the shipyard where Solidarity began.

Poland's southern heartland on the upper Vistula, rising from the royal city of Kraków through the Carpathian foothills to the granite peaks of the Tatras — the old seat of Polish kings, home of the Wieliczka salt mine, the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial, the highland town of Zakopane and John Paul II's birthplace at Wadowice.

Poland's south-eastern borderland facing Ukraine, stretching from the Lublin upland and the Renaissance town of Zamość through Subcarpathia's Rzeszów and Łańcut to the wild Bieszczady mountains, and west to Kielce and Sandomierz in the Holy Cross region — a land of farming uplands, magnate residences, Orthodox and Jewish heritage and quiet forests.

Poland's green north-eastern corner, bordering Russia's Kaliningrad region, Lithuania and Belarus — the lakes and forests of Warmia and Masuria around Olsztyn, once part of East Prussia, and Podlaskie around Białystok, a borderland of Catholic, Orthodox and Tatar communities with the primeval Białowieża Forest and the Wolf's Lair bunkers.

Poland's western lowlands between the Warta and the Oder — Greater Poland around Poznań and Gniezno, cradle of the Polish state, and Lubusz on the German border around Zielona Góra and Gorzów, a land of pine forests, lakes and vineyards — known for orderly towns, prosperous farms and a strong regional pride.

South-western Poland along the upper Oder and the Sudeten and Beskid mountains, joining Lower Silesia's capital Wrocław, the coal-and-steel conurbation around Katowice and the small province of Opole — a borderland that passed between Polish, Bohemian, Habsburg and Prussian rule, with castles, spa towns and the Karkonosze range on the Czech border.

The flat heart of central Poland along the middle Vistula, joining the capital Warsaw and its Masovian hinterland with the old textile city of Łódź — a region of rebuilt and reinvented cities, Chopin's birthplace at Żelazowa Wola, the early royal seat of Płock and the orchards and folk-art villages between them.

Portugal's vast, thinly peopled south-central plain, stretching from the Spanish border to the Atlantic — a land of cork oaks, wheat fields, olive groves and whitewashed hill towns, centred on the Roman and Renaissance city of Évora and marked by great estates, slow-paced village life and a strong tradition of polyphonic song.

The broad middle of Portugal, from the Atlantic lagoons of Aveiro and the surf of Nazaré across the Ribatejo plains and the university city of Coimbra to the granite uplands of the Serra da Estrela and the Spanish border — a region of great monasteries, pilgrim Fátima, wool towns and fortified hill villages.

The capital and its two coastal districts — Lisbon on its hills above the Tagus, the Romantic palaces of Sintra, the resort coast of Cascais and Estoril, the surf town of Ericeira, and south across the river the working port of Setúbal and the limestone cliffs of the Arrábida.

Portugal's green and granite north, from the port-wine city of Porto and the terraced Douro Valley up through the Minho to the remote uplands of Trás-os-Montes — the cradle of the kingdom at Guimarães and Braga, and the country's most densely Catholic, rural and emigrant-marked corner.

Portugal's southernmost region, a strip of coast and low hills between the Atlantic and the Spanish border on the Guadiana — the last land taken from the Moors, the launch pad of the Age of Discovery, and since the 1960s the country's great beach destination, with golden cliffs in the west and lagoon islands in the east.

The southern third of the Republic of the Congo, running from the capital Brazzaville on the Congo River through the Pool, Bouenza, Niari and Lékoumou departments to Pointe-Noire on the Atlantic. The railway and highway join its two big cities, and most of the country's people, oil and trade are found here.

The northern two-thirds of the Republic of the Congo, from the grassy Teke plateaus through the Cuvette basin to the rainforests of the Sangha and the flooded forests of the Likouala. It is thinly peopled logging and river country, and home to Odzala-Kokoua and Nouabalé-Ndoki, two of Central Africa's leading parks for gorillas and forest elephants.

Romania's western corner, running from the flat, fertile plain around Timișoara and Arad south into the Banat Mountains and the Danube gorge — a Habsburg-shaped frontier land of Romanians, Swabians, Hungarians, Serbs and Czechs, where the 1989 revolution began, with limestone gorges and an old imperial spa.

The eastern half of historic Wallachia, running from the Carpathian ridges of the Bucegi and Făgăraș down across the flat Danube plain — the region of the capital Bucharest, the old princely seats of Curtea de Argeș and Târgoviște, the royal resort of Sinaia and the Prahova oilfields.

The strip of land between the lower Danube and the Black Sea in Romania's south-east — a dry plateau of Greek and Roman ruins, Turkish and Tatar villages and vineyards, with Romania's only sea coast, its largest port at Constanța, and the wetlands of the Danube Delta around Tulcea.

Romania's far north-west, where the hay meadows, carved gates and wooden churches of Maramureș meet the Ukrainian border and the plain of Crișana runs down to Hungary — a region of old mining towns, the Art Nouveau city of Oradea, Hungarian and Swabian communities and Romania's best-preserved village culture.

Romania's north-east, the western part of the old principality of Moldavia between the Eastern Carpathians and the Prut — the land of Stephen the Great and the painted monasteries of Bucovina, of Iași, the old capital and university city, and of hill vineyards running down to the Danube port of Galați.

The western part of historic Wallachia, between the Olt river, the southern Carpathians and the Danube — a region of Roman Drobeta, the monasteries of Cozia and Horezu, Brâncuși's home ground around Târgu Jiu, the Iron Gates gorge and the university and industrial city of Craiova.

The high basin enclosed by the arc of the Carpathians and the Apuseni Mountains in the centre of Romania — a region long ruled from Hungary and Vienna, where Romanians, Hungarians, Székelys and the remaining Saxons share walled towns, fortified churches and castles from Brașov and Sibiu to Cluj-Napoca and Sighișoara.

Russia's Baltic exclave, wedged between Poland and Lithuania and cut off from the rest of the country — the former German city of Königsberg and the northern half of East Prussia, with the dunes of the Curonian Spit, the resorts of Svetlogorsk and most of the world's mined amber. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The historic core of European Russia, from Moscow and the Golden Ring towns of the upper Volga to Smolensk in the west and the black-earth farmland of Voronezh and Kursk in the south — the heartland where the Russian state took shape. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The heart of Asian Russia, from the Omsk steppe across the Ob and the Yenisei to Lake Baikal, and south into the Altai and Sayan mountains on the Mongolian border — a land of taiga, great rivers and Trans-Siberian cities such as Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk, with Tuva's Buddhist and nomadic culture in its far south. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The steppe south of European Russia, from the Black Sea coast at Sochi and the Kuban farmland of Krasnodar to the lower Don at Rostov, the Volga at Volgograd and Astrakhan, and the Buddhist republic of Kalmykia — Cossack country, now a key rear base for the war in Ukraine. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Russia's north-western quarter, from St Petersburg and the medieval cities of Novgorod and Pskov to the lakes and forests of Karelia, the White Sea coast of Arkhangelsk and the Arctic port of Murmansk — a region of imperial palaces, wooden churches, monasteries and tundra. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Russia's mountainous southern edge, running from the spa towns of Stavropol Krai up to Mount Elbrus and across the republics of Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia and Chechnya to Dagestan and ancient Derbent on the Caspian — a mosaic of peoples, languages and faiths shaped by conquest and war. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Russia's vast Pacific side, from Baikal's eastern shore in Buryatia across Yakutia's permafrost to Vladivostok, Sakhalin, the volcanoes of Kamchatka and Chukotka opposite Alaska — more than a third of the country's territory holding only about 8 million people, and closer to China, Korea and Japan than to Moscow. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The band of Russia that straddles the low Ural Mountains between Europe and Asia and runs north across the West Siberian plain to the Arctic tundra of Yamal — the country's metal-working heartland around Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk, and the source of most of its oil and gas. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The middle and upper Volga basin and the western foot of the Urals, from Nizhny Novgorod through Kazan, Samara and Saratov to Perm, Ufa and the Orenburg steppe — Russia's most ethnically mixed heartland of Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvash and Finno-Ugric peoples, and a centre of its car, oil and defence industries. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Saudi Arabia's north-west, from the sandstone valleys of AlUla and the Nabataean tombs of Hegra (which lie just south of Tabuk Province, in Medina Province) up through Tabuk and the Red Sea coast towards Jordan, and east across the oases of Al Jawf to the Iraqi border — ancient caravan country that is now the frontier of the kingdom's tourism and giga-projects.

Saudi Arabia's green south-west, where the Sarawat mountains of Asir and Al Bahah rise above the hot Tihama coastal plain of Jazan and the Red Sea's Farasan Islands, with the old oasis city of Najran to the east — a region of terraced fields, stone tower-houses and cultural ties to neighbouring Yemen.

The western strip of Saudi Arabia between the Red Sea and the mountains — the Hejaz, home to Islam's two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, to the old port of Jeddah that has welcomed pilgrims for centuries, and to the cool highland city of Taif, with a long, cosmopolitan history shaped by the pilgrimage.

The central plateau of Saudi Arabia, running from the capital Riyadh and the mud-brick cradle of the dynasty at Diriyah north through the farming oases of Qassim to Ha'il and the sands of the Nafud — the Najd, heartland of the House of Saud, of Najdi Arabic and of the kingdom's religious conservatism.

Saudi Arabia's largest province, stretching along the Gulf coast from Kuwait to Qatar and deep into the Empty Quarter — the home of the kingdom's oil industry and of Saudi Aramco, of the Dammam–Khobar–Dhahran conurbation, of large Shia communities in Qatif and Al-Ahsa, and of the great palm oasis around Hofuf.

Senegal's crowded western heartland, from the Cap-Vert peninsula and the capital Dakar down the resort coast of the Petite Côte and inland to the railway city of Thiès and the Mouride holy city of Touba — the country's political, commercial and religious centre of gravity.

Senegal's northern tier, running from the old colonial capital of Saint-Louis at the mouth of the Senegal River up the river valley past Podor to Matam, with the dry Ferlo grazing lands and the dunes of Louga to the south — the home of the Fouta Toro and a frontier with Mauritania.

Senegal's green south and wide east — the Casamance, cut off from the north by The Gambia, with its rice paddies, forests, Diola villages and Atlantic beaches, and the savanna east of Tambacounda and Kédougou, where the Niokolo-Koba park and the Bassari hills reach towards Guinea and Mali.

Central Senegal between Dakar's hinterland and The Gambia, from the mangrove islands of the Saloum delta inland through Fatick and the trading city of Kaolack to the groundnut fields of Kaffrine — the land of the old Serer kingdoms of Sine and Saloum and the heart of the peanut basin.

Serbia's capital and the flat, fertile plain north of the Sava and Danube — the autonomous province of Vojvodina, with Novi Sad, Subotica and the Fruška Gora hills. Once the Habsburg frontier, it is the country's most multi-ethnic region, its breadbasket, and home to about half of Serbia's people.

The land between the Great Morava valley and the Romanian and Bulgarian borders, where the Danube cuts through the Carpathians in the Iron Gates gorge. Thinly populated and rich in archaeology, it runs from Smederevo and the Morava towns to the copper-mining hills around Bor and the vineyards of Negotin.

The south of Serbia, from Kruševac and the Rasina valley through Niš and the Nišava corridor to Pirot on the Bulgarian border and Vranje near North Macedonia. It is the old road from Central Europe to Istanbul, marked by Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman layers, a strong grilling tradition and the mountains of Stara Planina and Radan.

The hilly heart and mountainous west of Serbia, from the plum orchards of Šumadija and the Mačva plain to Zlatibor, Tara and the Drina canyon, and south to Kopaonik and the Raška valleys. It is the cradle of the 19th-century Serbian state and of its medieval church, with Studenica and Žiča among its monasteries.

The western and northern half of Sierra Leone, running from the mountainous Freetown peninsula and its beaches up through the Temne and Limba heartlands around Port Loko and Makeni to the savanna and hills of the Guinea border, where Mount Bintumani rises in the Loma Mountains.

The southern and eastern provinces of Sierra Leone, a greener, wetter land of rainforest, cocoa farms and diamond fields stretching from the mangrove coast of Sherbro Island to the Liberian and Guinean borders — the Mende heartland, with Bo and Kenema as its cities.

The lowland west of Slovakia, from the capital on the Danube across the Small Carpathian vineyards and the farmland of the Danubian plain to the Váh valley — the country's richest and most populous corner, home to its old coronation city, its first university town, the Great Moravian seat of Nitra and the spa of Piešťany.

The mountainous heart of Slovakia, from the Orava and Kysuce valleys on the Polish border through Žilina, Liptov and the Low Tatras to the old mining towns of the Štiavnica hills and the Hungarian-speaking south — the country of sheep-cheese farms, timbered villages and the 1944 uprising.

Slovakia's eastern half, from the granite peaks of the High Tatras on the Polish border through the medieval towns of Spiš and Šariš to Košice, the Slovak Karst and the Tokaj vineyards — a region of Gothic altars, wooden churches, Rusyn and Hungarian minorities and the country's second city.

The eastern half of Slovenia, from the Kamnik–Savinja Alps and the Drava valley through Styria's vine-covered hills and the old towns of Maribor, Ptuj and Celje to the Pannonian plains of Prekmurje and the Krka valley in the south-east — a region of spas, wine cellars, Roman towns and a Hungarian-influenced borderland.

The heart and the high north-west of Slovenia — the capital, Ljubljana, in its basin on the Ljubljanica, the Alpine province of Gorenjska with Lake Bled, Lake Bohinj and Triglav, and the old coal valleys of Zasavje — a region of Habsburg towns, Plečnik's architecture, dairy pastures and the country's best-known mountains.

Slovenia's western borderland with Italy, from the short Istrian coast at Koper and Piran across the limestone Karst plateau with its great caves to the Vipava and Brda wine valleys and the emerald Soča beneath the Julian Alps — a Mediterranean-tinged region marked by Venetian towns, bilingual traditions and the battles of the First World War.

Southern and central Somalia, from the capital Mogadishu on the Indian Ocean through the farmland of the Shabelle and Juba river valleys to Baidoa, the port of Kismayo and the Bajuni islands near Kenya — the country's most populous and fertile part, and the main battleground between the federal government and al-Shabaab. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The north-eastern tip of Somalia and the Horn of Africa, a semi-autonomous state formed in 1998 that considers itself part of Somalia but has rejected the current federal government's authority since 2024, with its capital at Garowe, its port at Bosaso on the Gulf of Aden and a long, empty Indian Ocean coast running south from Cape Guardafui. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The north-west of Somalia, the former British Somaliland protectorate, which declared independence in 1991 and runs its own government from Hargeisa while Somalia considers it part of its territory — a land of dry plains, the Golis and Daallo mountains and the Gulf of Aden port of Berbera. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

South Africa's south-western corner, where Table Mountain rises over Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula runs south to the Cape of Good Hope — the oldest colonial settlement in the country, with the vineyards of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek inland and the Garden Route running east along the Indian Ocean coast.

South Africa's eastern seaboard province, between the Indian Ocean and the basalt wall of the Drakensberg — the homeland of the Zulu kingdom and of a large community of Indian descent, with Durban's port and beaches, the iSimangaliso wetlands and Hluhluwe-iMfolozi in the subtropical north, and the battlefields of the 19th-century wars inland.

The north-east of South Africa, joining Gauteng's gold-built cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria with the Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces below the escarpment — the country's economic engine and the route most visitors take to the Kruger National Park, the Blyde River Canyon and the ancient kingdom of Mapungubwe on the Limpopo.

South Africa's south-eastern province, between the Garden Route and KwaZulu-Natal — the heartland of the Xhosa people and of the century of frontier wars, with Addo's elephants and Gqeberha on the coast, the green hills and cliffs of the Wild Coast, the university town of Makhanda and the high southern Drakensberg.

The farming and mining heartland of South Africa's interior plateau, between the Vaal and Orange rivers and the Botswana border — the old Boer republic around Bloemfontein and the sandstone highlands of Clarens and Golden Gate, joined with the platinum belt of Rustenburg, the resort of Sun City and the game reserves of Pilanesberg and Madikwe.

South Africa's largest and most thinly peopled province, a dry country of Kalahari dunes, Karoo plains and the Orange River valley stretching from Kimberley's diamond fields to the Atlantic — home to the Big Hole, the Augrabies Falls, the Kgalagadi's red dunes, Namaqualand's spring flowers and the mountain desert of the Richtersveld.

The Gyeongsang provinces of southeastern South Korea — the Nakdong River basin and the coast from Pohang to Tongyeong — where the port of Busan, the inland city of Daegu and industrial Ulsan sit alongside Gyeongju, capital of the Silla kingdom for nearly a thousand years, and the Confucian villages around Andong.

The mountainous east and the agricultural middle of South Korea — Gangwon's Taebaek ranges, ski slopes and East Sea beaches, and the Chungcheong provinces with the science city of Daejeon, the new administrative capital of Sejong, the gorges of Danyang and the royal tombs and fortresses of Baekje's last two capitals.

South Korea's largest island and its only self-governing province, a volcanic island off the southern coast built around the cone of Hallasan, the country's highest peak — a place of lava tubes, crater hills and black basalt shores, with its own dialect, shamanic traditions and women divers, now the favourite holiday island of the Korean mainland.

The Jeolla provinces and the city of Gwangju in South Korea's southwest — a region of rice plains, tidal flats and island-strewn coast, famous at home for the richest cooking in the country, for the pansori singing tradition and for the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, with the hanok quarter of Jeonju in the north and the tea hills and bays of the south coast.

The northwest corner of South Korea around the lower Han River, where Seoul, the port city of Incheon and the surrounding province of Gyeonggi hold about half the nation's people — the Joseon royal capital turned megacity, ringed by fortress walls, royal tombs, satellite cities and, to the north, the Demilitarized Zone.

The green, hilly south of South Sudan, made up of the three Equatoria states along the borders with Uganda, Kenya, the DR Congo and the Central African Republic, home to the capital Juba on the White Nile and to dozens of farming peoples. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The north-east of South Sudan, made up of Upper Nile, Unity and Jonglei, where the White Nile spreads into the Sudd wetland and flat floodplains run east to the Ethiopian border — the home of the Nuer, Shilluk and many Dinka, the country's oilfields and a vast antelope migration. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The north-western quarter of South Sudan, a land of savanna, seasonal rivers and floodplain running from the Sudanese border down to the edge of Equatoria, made up of Northern and Western Bahr el Ghazal, Warrap and Lakes, and dominated by Dinka cattle-keeping culture. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Spain's southernmost and most populous region, stretching from the Portuguese border to the deserts of Almería and from the Sierra Morena to the Strait of Gibraltar — the heartland of Moorish al-Andalus, home to Seville, Córdoba and Granada's Alhambra, and the birthplace of flamenco, sherry and the tapas bar.

A large inland region of north-eastern Spain stretching from the high Pyrenees on the French border across the dry Ebro valley to the uplands of Teruel — the core of a medieval crown that ruled much of the Mediterranean, with Zaragoza as its capital and a heritage of Mudéjar towers, Romanesque monasteries and mountain valleys.

Two green communities on Spain's Bay of Biscay coast, between Galicia and the Basque Country, backed by the limestone peaks of the Picos de Europa — a land of Ice Age cave art, the birthplace of Christian Spain's first kingdom, cider halls and fishing villages, with Oviedo, Gijón and Santander as its cities.

Spain's largest autonomous community, a high plateau north and west of Madrid drained by the Duero — the heartland of the old kingdoms of Castile and León, dense with cathedrals, castles and walled cities such as Salamanca, Segovia, Ávila, Burgos and León, and home to the Ribera del Duero wine country.

Spain's north-eastern corner, running from the Pyrenees and the French border down the Mediterranean coast to the Ebro delta — a nation within Spain with its own language and a long history as a trading power, centred on Barcelona and taking in Girona, Tarragona, the Costa Brava and the mountain of Montserrat.

A thinly populated region of south-western Spain on the border with Portugal, made up of the provinces of Cáceres and Badajoz — a land of oak-studded dehesa pastures, storks on church towers, Roman Mérida, the walled old town of Cáceres and the home towns of the conquistadors, known for its acorn-fed Iberian ham.

Spain's green north-western corner, facing the Atlantic above Portugal — a rain-washed land of deep estuaries called rías, granite villages and its own Galician language, with the pilgrim city of Santiago de Compostela at the end of the Camino and a coast famous for its seafood.

The heart of the Spanish meseta — the capital, Madrid, and the high, open plains of Castile-La Mancha around it, a land of royal palaces, the old imperial city of Toledo, Cuenca on its gorges, and the windmills and vineyards of Don Quixote's La Mancha.

An archipelago in the western Mediterranean off Spain's east coast — Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera — with a Catalan-speaking island culture, prehistoric stone monuments, a long history under Carthage, Rome, the Moors and the Crown of Aragon, and one of Europe's biggest summer holiday economies.

Three neighbouring communities in Spain's north, from the green Bay of Biscay coast around Bilbao and San Sebastián through the old kingdom of Navarre to the vineyards of the Ebro valley — a region of the Basque language, a celebrated food culture, the San Fermín festival and Spain's best-known red wine.

A chain of volcanic islands in the Atlantic off the coast of north-west Africa, far from mainland Spain — seven main islands from Lanzarote and Fuerteventura in the east to El Hierro in the west, with Spain's highest mountain, Mount Teide, a mild climate all year and one of Europe's largest winter-sun holiday economies.

Spain's eastern Mediterranean seaboard, from the walled peninsula of Peñíscola south through Valencia, the Costa Blanca and Alicante to the ancient naval port of Cartagena and the orchards around Murcia — a warm, fertile coast of rice fields, citrus groves and beach resorts, and the homeland of paella and the Fallas.

Sri Lanka's populous western lowlands and their wet-zone hinterland, from the commercial capital Colombo and the Catholic fishing town of Negombo inland to the gem country of Ratnapura and the rubber hills of Kegalle — the island's economic engine, home to its main port and airport.

The southern tip of Sri Lanka, from the Dutch-walled port of Galle past the surf beaches and fishing towns of Matara to the dry scrub and lagoons of Hambantota — the island's main beach coast, the old heart of the Ruhuna kingdom, and home to Yala's leopards and the whales off Mirissa.

The Tamil-speaking north and the mixed east of Sri Lanka, from the Jaffna peninsula and its islands down the Indian Ocean coast through Trincomalee and Batticaloa to the surf of Arugam Bay — the heartland of Sri Lankan Tamil culture, the main theatre of the civil war, and the island's quietest beach coast.

The mountainous heart of Sri Lanka, from the old royal capital of Kandy up through the tea estates of Nuwara Eliya to the Uva hills around Ella and Haputale and down to the dry lowlands of Monaragala — the last Sinhalese kingdom to fall to Europe and the home of Ceylon tea.

The dry plains of north-central Sri Lanka, reaching west to the Puttalam lagoon and south to the spice gardens of Matale — the cradle of Sinhalese Buddhist civilisation, with the ancient capitals of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, the rock of Sigiriya, the Dambulla caves and great reservoirs where elephants gather.

The vast west of Sudan, from the sultanate lands of Darfur and the volcanic Jebel Marra to the gum-arabic savannah of Kordofan and the Nuba mountains near the South Sudan border — home to farmers and camel and cattle herders, and the scene of Sudan's worst violence since 2003. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The heart of Sudan, where the Blue and White Niles meet at Khartoum and Omdurman and the irrigated Gezira plain stretches south towards Sennar and the Ethiopian border — the country's old seat of power, its cotton belt, and since 2023 a main theatre of the war. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The desert north of Sudan, where the Nile bends through Nubia between Egypt and the edge of Khartoum — the land of the Kushite kings, with the pyramids of Meroë, the holy mountain of Jebel Barkal, the cataracts and a narrow ribbon of date palms and fields along the river. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Eastern Sudan, from the Red Sea coast and the Beja hills around Port Sudan and Suakin to Kassala beneath its granite peaks and the Gedaref grain plains on the Eritrean and Ethiopian borders — the country's gateway to the sea and, from 2023 to early 2026, the seat of its wartime government. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The forested heart of Sweden, from the mining country of Bergslagen and the city of Örebro north through the lakes and rivers of Värmland to Dalarna, where the villages around Lake Siljan keep the folk traditions — red cottages, maypoles, carved horses — that much of the world thinks of as typically Swedish.

Sweden's west-facing side on the Kattegat and Skagerrak, from the bare granite islands of Bohuslän down the sandy Halland coast, and inland to Lake Vänern — a region built around Gothenburg, the country's great port and industrial city, and famous across Sweden for its seafood.

The southern half of Norrland, reaching from the Gulf of Bothnia to the Norwegian mountains — the painted farmhouses of Hälsingland, the port cities of Gävle and Sundsvall, the steep, still-rising High Coast, and inland Jämtland with the lake city of Östersund and the ski slopes of Åre.

Sweden's southernmost corner — the rolling farmland, beech woods and sandy coasts of Skåne and the island-fringed shore of Blekinge. Danish until 1658 and now bound to Copenhagen by the Öresund Bridge, it holds the cities of Malmö, Lund and Helsingborg and the naval town of Karlskrona.

South-eastern Sweden between the great lake Vättern and the Baltic — the forests, glassworks and red cottages of Småland, the farming plains and cities of Östergötland, and the limestone islands of Öland and Gotland, where medieval Visby still stands inside its walls.

The historic heart of Sweden, where Lake Mälaren drains into the Baltic — the capital Stockholm and its island archipelago, the university city of Uppsala, the Viking-age towns of Sigtuna and Birka, and the old lakeside cities of Västmanland and Södermanland, where the Swedish kingdom first took shape.

Sweden's vast, thinly peopled north, stretching from the Bothnian coast and the cities of Umeå and Luleå inland across forest and bog to the mountains of the Norwegian border — the homeland of the Sami, the iron-ore town of Kiruna, the wilderness of Sarek, and the land of the midnight sun and the northern lights.

The historic core of Switzerland, from the federal capital Bern and the farmland of the Emmental to the Bernese Oberland and the lake cantons around Lucerne where the Confederation was born in 1291 — a region of arcaded old towns, lake steamers and the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau.

The French-speaking west of Switzerland, from international Geneva and the vineyard shores of Lake Geneva through Lausanne and Montreux to the watchmaking valleys of Neuchâtel and the pastures of Fribourg — the Suisse romande, with its own history of Calvin, the Red Cross and Bernese rule.

Switzerland's largest and most thinly populated canton, a knot of some 150 valleys in the south-east where German, Romansh and Italian are all official — home of the old Free State of the Three Leagues, the ski resorts of St. Moritz and Davos, the high valley of the Engadin and the Rhaetian Railway's famous mountain lines.

Switzerland's Italian-speaking canton, south of the Gotthard, running from high granite valleys down to the lakes of Lugano and Maggiore — once a subject land of the Swiss cantons, now a place of lakeside towns, stone villages and grotto taverns where the country turns Mediterranean in climate, language and food.

The deep, sunny valley of the upper Rhône in south-western Switzerland, walled by the highest peaks of the Alps — a bilingual, Catholic canton of vineyards and apricot orchards on the valley floor and famous resorts above, from Zermatt under the Matterhorn to Saas-Fee, Verbier and the Aletsch Glacier.

The German-speaking north and north-east of Switzerland, from Basel on the Rhine and the folded Jura ridges to Zurich, Lake Constance and the green hills of Appenzell — the country's economic engine, home to its largest city, its pharmaceutical industry and its oldest university, with the French-speaking canton of Jura at its western edge.

Northern Syria between the Turkish border and the Orontes, centred on Aleppo — for centuries the great trading city of the Levant — and the olive-covered limestone hills of Idlib, scattered with the abandoned Byzantine villages known as the Dead Cities. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel to it.

Southwestern Syria, from the capital Damascus and its oasis to the Qalamoun mountains, the basalt Hauran plain, the Druze highlands of Suwayda and the Golan foothills — home to the Umayyad Mosque, Aramaic-speaking Maaloula and Roman Bosra. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel to it.

Central and western Syria, from the Orontes cities of Homs and Hama across the coastal mountains to the Mediterranean ports of Latakia and Tartus, and east through the desert to Palmyra — the land of Crusader castles, waterwheels and caravan ruins. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel to it.

Syria's east, where the Euphrates crosses the desert past Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor towards Iraq and the Khabur waters the Jazira plains around Hasakah and Qamishli — a land of Bedouin tribes, Kurdish and Assyrian towns, grain, oil and Bronze Age cities. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel to it.

Taiwan's thinly populated Pacific side, the counties of Hualien and Taitung, where the Central Mountain Range drops to the sea and a long rift valley runs between it and the Coastal Range — the island's most Indigenous region, a land of marble gorges, rice fields, hot springs and offshore islands.

The three island counties governed from Taipei beyond the main island — the windswept Penghu archipelago in the Taiwan Strait, and Kinmen and Matsu, which lie just off the coast of mainland China's Fujian province and are claimed by Beijing — a region of basalt islets, Fujianese villages, Cold War fortifications and seafood.

The middle of Taiwan's west side, running from the Hakka hills of Miaoli through the city of Taichung and the farming plains of Changhua and Yunlin to Nantou, the island's only landlocked county — a region of machinery workshops, Mazu pilgrimages, the old port of Lukang, and tea gardens and lakes in the central mountains.

Southern Taiwan, from Chiayi and the Alishan mountains down through the old capital Tainan and the port city of Kaohsiung to the tropical Hengchun peninsula in Pingtung — the oldest settled Han part of the island, its most temple-dense and Hokkien-speaking region, and a land of heavy industry, fruit farms and coral coasts.

The densely populated northern tip of Taiwan, from the capital Taipei and its satellite cities of New Taipei and Keelung west to Taoyuan and Hsinchu and south-east over the mountains to the Yilan plain — the island's political and financial centre, its chip-making heartland, and a coast of eroded headlands, old gold-mining towns and hot springs.

The political and demographic heart of Tajikistan — the capital Dushanbe and the Hisor valley, the directly governed mountain districts reaching east up the Rasht valley, and the cotton lowlands of Khatlon running south to the Panj river and the Afghan border. Most of the country's people and its big hydropower dams are here.

Sughd, Tajikistan's northern region, stretching from the Fergana Valley and the Syr Darya at Khujand south over the Turkestan range to the Zarafshan valley and the Fann Mountains around Penjikent. It is the country's most industrial region, with its oldest towns, Sogdian ruins and the lakes of the Fann.

The Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, which covers the eastern half of Tajikistan but holds only a few per cent of its people — deep western valleys of Ismaili Pamiri villages along the Panj opposite Afghanistan, and a high, cold eastern plateau of Kyrgyz herders, crossed by the Pamir Highway.

The north-eastern highlands and Rift Valley country of Arusha, Kilimanjaro and Manyara regions — Tanzania's tourism heartland, running from Mount Kilimanjaro and Moshi past Arusha to the Ngorongoro Crater, the southern Serengeti plains, Lake Manyara and Tarangire, and home to the Chagga, Maasai, Arusha, Meru and Iraqw peoples.

The mainland's Indian Ocean shore from the Kenyan border south to the Rufiji, taking in Dar es Salaam, the country's largest city and commercial capital, the old caravan port of Bagamoyo, Tanga and Pangani, the cool Usambara Mountains inland and Mafia Island offshore — the region where Swahili trade, German rule and modern Tanzania's economy all centred.

The dry central plateau and the far west of Tanzania, from the capital Dodoma across the Singida plains and the woodlands of Tabora to Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika — the country of the old central caravan route, where Stanley found Livingstone at Ujiji and where chimpanzees are studied and tracked in Gombe and Mahale.

Tanzania's north-west, wrapped around the southern shores of Lake Victoria — the Sukuma heartland of Mwanza, Shinyanga, Simiyu and Geita, the Mara country around Musoma, and the green Haya hills of Kagera — a populous region of fishing, cotton and gold mining that also takes in most of the Serengeti's western and northern reaches.

The whole southern third of Tanzania, from the Uluguru and Udzungwa mountains and the tea-growing Southern Highlands around Iringa, Njombe and Mbeya to Lake Nyasa, the remote parks of Ruaha, Nyerere and Katavi, and the cashew coast of Lindi and Mtwara — a large, little-visited region of wilderness, farmland and Swahili ruins.

The Zanzibar archipelago off Tanzania's coast — the main island of Unguja with the old city of Stone Town, and greener, quieter Pemba to the north — a semi-autonomous part of the union with its own president and parliament, a mostly Muslim Swahili culture, a history as the seat of an Omani sultanate, and an economy of cloves, seaweed and tourism.

The flat, river-fed heart of Thailand, running from the capital and the Gulf shore up the Chao Phraya basin to Nakhon Sawan — the rice bowl on which Ayutthaya and Bangkok were built, and the old core of the Siamese state, with Lopburi's Khmer towers and the canal country of Samut Songkhram close by.

Thailand's mountainous north, from the old Lanna kingdom of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai up to the Golden Triangle on the Mekong, west to the Shan-influenced valleys of Pai and Mae Hong Son, and south to the ruined early capital of Sukhothai and the lower-northern city of Phitsanulok.

The Khorat Plateau of northeastern Thailand, bounded by the Mekong and Laos to the north and east and by Cambodia to the south — the country's largest region, home to about a third of its people, Lao in speech and culture, with Bronze Age Ban Chiang, the Khmer temples of Phimai and Phanom Rung, and a food culture now eaten nationwide.

The western strip of Thailand along the Myanmar border, from the forested river valleys of Kanchanaburi and the Death Railway south through Ratchaburi and Phetchaburi to the royal seaside resort of Hua Hin and the long, narrow Prachuap Khiri Khan coast on the Gulf of Thailand.

The eastern side of Thailand's southern peninsula, from Chumphon and the islands of Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao down through Surat Thani and Nakhon Si Thammarat to Songkhla, Hat Yai and the Malay-Muslim provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat on the Malaysian border, where a separatist insurgency continues.

The coast and hinterland east of Bangkok, running from the ports and industrial estates of Chon Buri and Rayong past Pattaya to the fruit orchards and gem trade of Chanthaburi and the islands of Trat on the Cambodian border — Thailand's industrial engine and the capital's nearest beaches.

Thailand's west coast on the Andaman Sea, running from Ranong on the Myanmar border south through Phang Nga, Phuket and Krabi to Trang and Satun near Malaysia — a coast of limestone towers, coral islands and tin-mining towns, and the country's busiest beach region, still marked by the 2004 tsunami.

Northern Togo, from the terraced Kabye hills around Kara to the tower-house villages of the Koutammakou and the flat savanna of the Savanes region around Dapaong on the Burkina Faso border — a land of initiation festivals, earthen architecture and millet farming, whose far north has been affected by militant attacks spreading from the Sahel.

Southern and central Togo, from the capital Lomé and the Vodun shrines of Lake Togo, Togoville and Aného on the coast, up through the forested coffee and cocoa hills around Kpalimé and Mount Agou, to the plateau town of Atakpamé and Sokodé in the centre — where most Togolese live and the country's history was made.

Tunisia's southern half, from the island of Djerba and the Gulf of Gabès inland across the salt pan of the Chott el Jerid to the palm oases of Tozeur and Nefta, the phosphate towns around Gafsa, the dunes beyond Douz and the hilltop Berber villages and fortified granaries of Matmata and Tataouine.

Tunisia's east-central belt, from the Sahel coast of Sousse, Monastir and Mahdia and the commercial city of Sfax inland to the holy city of Kairouan and the high steppe of Kasserine and Sidi Bouzid — a region of olive groves, ribat fortresses, beach resorts, the amphitheatre of El Jem and the town where the 2011 revolution began.

Tunisia's green, hilly northwest along the Algerian border — the Medjerda valley's wheat fields, the cork-oak forests of the Kroumirie above Tabarka, the hill town of Le Kef and a remarkable concentration of Roman cities, led by Dougga and Bulla Regia, in the least visited quarter of the country.

Tunisia's northeastern corner around the capital, taking in Greater Tunis, the ruins of Carthage and Sidi Bou Said on the Gulf of Tunis, the Cap Bon peninsula with Hammamet and Nabeul, and the port of Bizerte beside the Ichkeul wetlands — the country's political, economic and cultural centre and its most densely settled region.

The high plateau at the centre of Turkey, a land of wheat fields, steppe and volcanic mountains stretching from Eskişehir and Ankara east to Sivas and south to Konya and Karaman — home to the capital, the eroded valleys and rock churches of Cappadocia, the Seljuk city of Konya and some of the oldest settlements on earth.

Turkey's southern coast and the Taurus Mountains behind it, running from the Lycian shore around Kaş through Antalya and the resorts of Side and Alanya to the cotton plain of Adana and the old Syrian-border city of Antakya, with the lake district of Isparta and Burdur inland — the country's biggest tourist region and one of its richest farming belts.

Turkey's high, mountainous east, stretching from Malatya and Elazığ on the Euphrates to the borders with Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan and Iran — a land of long winters, volcanic peaks such as Mount Ararat, the vast soda lake of Van, and the ruins of Urartian, Armenian and Seljuk cities, with a largely Kurdish population in the south-east of the region.

Turkey's north-western corner, wrapped around the Sea of Marmara from Thrace on the European side to Bursa and the Dardanelles in Anatolia — the country's most populous and industrial region, home to Istanbul, the early Ottoman capitals of Bursa and Edirne, and the battlefields of Troy and Gallipoli.

Turkey's share of Upper Mesopotamia, the hot, rolling plateau between the Euphrates and the Tigris that borders Syria and Iraq, from Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa east to Diyarbakır, Mardin and Şırnak — a region of Neolithic temples, early Christian monasteries, stone-built old towns and famous food, with a largely Kurdish, Arab, Syriac and Turkish population.

Turkey's western shore and its hinterland, from İzmir and the ancient Ionian cities down to the resort peninsulas of Bodrum, Marmaris and Fethiye and inland to Pamukkale and the marble and ceramic towns of Afyon and Kütahya — the country's richest landscape of Greek and Roman ruins, olive groves and holiday coast.

Turkey's long, green northern strip between the Black Sea and the Pontic Mountains, running from Düzce and Bolu in the west past Samsun and Trabzon to the Georgian border at Artvin, and inland to Amasya, Tokat and Çorum — a rainy land of tea and hazelnut gardens, forested valleys, high summer pastures and old Pontic and Ottoman towns.

The heart and north of Turkmenistan, running from the white-marble capital Ashgabat and the Ahal oasis under the Kopet Dag across the Karakum desert to the Daşoguz lowlands on the Amu Darya — home to Parthian Nisa, the burning Darvaza crater and the medieval Khwarazm capital of Kunya-Urgench.

Turkmenistan's largest province, the desert west that runs down to the Caspian Sea — an oil and gas country of port towns and pipelines, home to Turkmenbashi, the Awaza resort and the provincial capital Balkanabat, and to the striped cliffs of the Yangykala canyon and the shrines of the Yomut Turkmen.

Eastern Turkmenistan, from the Murghab oasis around Mary and the ruins of ancient Merv to Turkmenabat on the Amu Darya and the Koytendag mountains on the Uzbek border — a land of Bronze Age and Silk Road cities, cotton and gas fields, and the country's highest peaks.

Western Uganda runs along the Albertine Rift from Lake Albert to the volcanoes on the Rwandan border, taking in the old kingdoms of Bunyoro, Tooro and Ankole and the terraced hills of Kigezi — the country's great wildlife region, with the Bwindi gorillas, Kibale's chimpanzees, Queen Elizabeth park and the glaciated Rwenzori mountains.

Uganda's largest and least visited region, stretching north of Lake Kyoga and the Victoria Nile from West Nile to the semi-arid plains of Karamoja — the lands of the Acholi, Langi, Lugbara and Karimojong, still rebuilding after the Lord's Resistance Army war, with the northern bank of Murchison Falls and the remote Kidepo Valley.

Uganda's eastern region runs from Jinja, where the White Nile leaves Lake Victoria, across the sugar country of Busoga and the Teso plains to the Kenyan border and the slopes of Mount Elgon — a densely farmed land of rafting rapids, waterfalls, coffee terraces and the Bagisu circumcision season.

The heartland of the old kingdom of Buganda, curving along the northern and western shores of Lake Victoria — home to the capital Kampala, the airport town of Entebbe, the Ssese Islands, the Mabira forest and the royal tombs at Kasubi, and Uganda's most populous and prosperous region.

The farming heartland on both banks of the middle Dnipro, from Podolian Vinnytsia through Cherkasy and Uman to Kropyvnytskyi and Poltava — the land of the Cossack Hetmanate, Taras Shevchenko and Gogol, and of black earth, sugar beet and village tradition. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel; most governments advise against all travel to Ukraine while the war continues.

The industrial east of Ukraine — the university city of Kharkiv and the coal and steel country of the Donbas in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, much of it occupied by Russia since 2014 or 2022 and the main theatre of the war. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel; most governments advise against all travel to Ukraine while the war continues.

The capital and the forested, river-cut north of Ukraine along the Dnipro and Desna, from Zhytomyr to Chernihiv and Sumy near the Russian border — the heartland of Kyivan Rus and the site of the Chornobyl disaster. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel; most governments advise against all travel to Ukraine while the war continues.

The steppe and Black Sea coast of southern Ukraine, from Odesa and the Danube delta to Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and the lower Dnipro, and the Crimean peninsula, occupied by Russia since 2014 — the old Cossack frontier and a coast of ports, vineyards and resorts. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel; most governments advise against all travel to Ukraine while the war continues.

The Habsburg and Polish-shaped west of Ukraine, from Lviv and the Volhynian lakes to the Carpathian ridges of the Hutsuls and the Hungarian-tinged valleys of Zakarpattia — the heartland of Ukrainian national feeling and the part of the country furthest from the front. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel; most governments advise against all travel to Ukraine while the war continues.

The heart of England between the Pennines and the North Sea, covering Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland — a region of Danish-founded county towns, early factories and coalfields, with the hills of the Peak District in the west and the flat farmland and coast of Lincolnshire in the east.

The flat, big-skied bulge of England north-east of London, taking in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire — a land of drained fens, wool churches, waterways and a shingle coast, anchored by the university city of Cambridge and the medieval cathedral cities of Norwich and Ely.

The southern half of Scotland, from the Central Belt of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling through Fife to the rolling Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, Ayrshire and the Isle of Arran. Most Scots live here, and it holds the capital, the largest city, the royal castles of the Wars of Independence and the home of golf.

The capital and the crowded, prosperous counties around it, from the Thames Valley and Oxford to the chalk hills and white cliffs of Kent and Sussex — the seat of government, finance and monarchy, with Windsor, Canterbury, Brighton, the New Forest and the Isle of Wight within easy reach.

England's north-eastern corner, from the Scottish border and the Northumberland coast down through Tyneside and County Durham to the Tees. It is a region shaped by Anglo-Saxon Christianity, Roman frontier and border warfare, then by coal, ships and railways, with Newcastle and Durham its best-known cities.

The north-western quarter of England between the Pennines and the Irish Sea, from Cheshire's farmland through the great cities of Manchester and Liverpool and the Lancashire coast to the mountains and lakes of Cumbria — the cradle of the cotton industry and the railway age, and home of England's highest peaks.

The part of the UK on the island of Ireland, six counties of north-east Ulster around Lough Neagh, from Belfast and the Antrim coast to Derry-Londonderry, the Mournes and the Fermanagh lakes. Shaped by plantation, industry, partition and the Troubles, it has been at peace since 1998 and holds a coast of basalt cliffs and ruined castles.

Scotland's eastern side, from the wooded glens of Perthshire through Dundee and the farmland and glens of Angus to Aberdeen, Royal Deeside and the whisky country of Speyside in Moray. It was the Pictish heartland and the site of Scotland's coronations, and today it is shaped by North Sea oil, farming, fishing and malt whisky.

England's long south-western peninsula, from the Cotswold hills and the cities of Bristol and Bath through Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset to Devon and Cornwall — a region of prehistoric monuments, Georgian spas, granite moors, fishing harbours and the country's favourite holiday coast.

Scotland's mountainous north and west, from Argyll and Inverness to the Isle of Skye, the Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland. It is one of Europe's emptiest landscapes, marked by clan history and the Clearances, by the Gaelic language in the west and the Norse past in the northern isles.

The UK's western nation, a mountainous peninsula between the Irish Sea and the Bristol Channel with its own language, parliament and national identity. Industrial valleys and the capital, Cardiff, fill the south-east, while Eryri, Anglesey, Pembrokeshire and the Gower hold some of Britain's finest mountains, castles and coast.

The western heart of England, from the Birmingham and Black Country conurbation out to the Welsh border counties of Shropshire and Herefordshire, with Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire between — the birthplace of Shakespeare and a cradle of the Industrial Revolution, set among river valleys, orchards and hills.

England's largest historic county and the Humber estuary lands to its south-east, running from the Pennines to the North Sea — the Roman and Viking city of York, the textile and steel cities of Leeds, Bradford and Sheffield, the port of Hull, and two national parks of limestone dales and heather moorland.

The largest and most thinly populated US state, separated from the lower 48 by Canada — a land of glaciers, tundra and North America's highest mountain, bought from Russia in 1867, home to many Alaska Native peoples, and reached by visitors mainly through Anchorage, Fairbanks and the cruise ports of the Inside Passage.

The most populous US state, stretching about 800 miles down the Pacific coast from redwood forests to the Mexican border — a land of Spanish missions and gold-rush towns, of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Silicon Valley, with the Sierra Nevada, the Central Valley's farms and the Mojave Desert behind the shore.

The six states wrapped around the western Great Lakes — Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota — once the country's industrial heartland of cars, steel and meatpacking, anchored by Chicago and ringed by freshwater dunes, forested lakeshores, farm country and the canoe wilderness of northern Minnesota.

The south-eastern peninsula between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, the oldest European-settled corner of the country and now its third most populous state — a place of beaches and coral keys, the Everglades wetland, Orlando's theme parks, Spanish colonial St. Augustine and a Miami shaped by Cuban and Caribbean immigration.

The island state in the middle of the North Pacific, some 2,000 miles south-west of the US mainland — a chain of volcanic islands settled by Polynesian voyagers, ruled by its own kings and queens until 1893, and now a place of beaches, active volcanoes, sea cliffs and a mixed Asian, Native Hawaiian and American culture unlike anywhere else in the country.

The six states of the far north-east — Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut — where the Pilgrims landed and the Revolution began, now a region of old colonial towns, elite universities, rocky Atlantic coast, wooded mountains and some of the country's most famous autumn colour.

The densely populated middle of the East Coast — New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Washington, D.C. — where the nation declared independence and chose its capital, and where the country's largest city sits within a few hours of Philadelphia, Baltimore, the Chesapeake Bay, the Adirondack wilderness and Niagara Falls.

The second-largest and second most populous state, stretching from the pine forests and Gulf Coast of the east to the Chihuahuan Desert of the west — once part of Spain and Mexico and briefly an independent republic, now a fast-growing economy of oil, ports and technology, with four of the country's largest cities and a strong sense of its own identity.

Seven states in the grassland heart of the country — Iowa, Missouri, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma — once the homeland of the Lakota, Pawnee, Osage and other Plains nations, now a land of vast farms, cattle ranges, river cities and wind-carved badlands, crossed by the old trails west and by Route 66.

Washington and Oregon, the north-western corner of the lower 48 states, split by the volcanic Cascade Range into a rainy, forested coast of fjords, islands and fast-growing cities — Seattle and Portland — and a dry interior of wheat fields, orchards and high desert.

The five mountain states of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, where the Rockies and the canyon country of the Colorado Plateau hold many of the country's best-known national parks — Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, Arches and Zion — alongside fast-growing Denver and Salt Lake City and a thinly peopled ranching interior.

Eleven states from Virginia and Kentucky to Louisiana, where English colonisation began at Jamestown and a plantation economy built on slavery led to the Civil War. Today the region is known for the Appalachian mountains, Atlantic and Gulf coasts, the birthplaces of jazz, blues and country music, a strong barbecue tradition, and the landmarks of the Civil Rights Movement.

The desert states of Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada, a land of canyons, mesas and sprawling Sun Belt cities where Native American, Spanish, Mexican and American histories overlap — home to the Grand Canyon, the Navajo Nation and the pueblos, old Santa Fe, and the casino city of Las Vegas.

Uruguay's populous south-west, running along the Río de la Plata from the capital's suburbs through the market gardens and vineyards of Canelones and the dairy country of San José to the old river port of Colonia del Sacramento — home to well over half the country's people, its government, its wine and its Swiss and Waldensian farming colonies.

Uruguay's south-east, where the Río de la Plata meets the Atlantic — the resort peninsula of Punta del Este and the Maldonado coast, the dunes, lagoons and fishing villages of Rocha running up to the Brazilian border, and the stony hills of Lavalleja inland around Minas.

The twelve departments of Uruguay's interior, from the Uruguay River towns and hot springs of Salto and Paysandú across the rolling ranchland of Tacuarembó and the Río Negro reservoirs to the Brazilian frontier and the wooded ravine of the Quebrada de los Cuervos — cattle, sheep, rice and forestry country, and the heartland of gaucho tradition.

Uzbekistan's far west, the lower Amu Darya from the Khorezm oasis around Khiva and Urgench to the autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan, the Ustyurt plateau and the dried bed of the Aral Sea — historic Khwarazm, rich in desert fortresses and a walled khanate capital, and the scene of the Aral Sea disaster.

The historic core of Uzbekistan along the Zarafshan river, from Samarkand and Bukhara out into the Kyzylkum desert, the Nuratau mountains and the irrigated Hunger Steppe of Jizzakh and Sirdaryo — the land of Sogdian merchants, the Samanids and Timur, and the country's great Silk Road monuments.

Uzbekistan's populous north-east, joining the capital Tashkent and its mountain hinterland in the western Tian Shan to the Fergana Valley beyond the Kamchik Pass — a fertile, densely farmed basin shared with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and the country's heartland of silk, ceramics and traditional crafts.

Uzbekistan's southern provinces of Qashqadaryo and Surxondaryo, reaching from Timur's home town of Shahrisabz and the steppe around Qarshi over the Hissar and Boysun mountains to Termez on the Amu Darya and the Afghan border — ancient Bactria, with Kushan Buddhist ruins, mountain villages and the country's highest peaks.

The vast, thinly peopled south of Venezuela, covering Bolívar and Amazonas states south of the Orinoco — the tepuis of Canaima and the Gran Sabana, Angel Falls, the river city of Ciudad Bolívar, the industrial belt of Ciudad Guayana and the Amazon rainforest of the Yanomami and Ye'kwana. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Venezuela's crowded heartland, where the capital fills a mountain valley behind the Ávila and the coastal range runs west past Maracay to Valencia — the seat of government, most of the country's industry and the Caribbean beaches of La Guaira and Aragua. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The great plains at the centre of Venezuela, running from the hills of Guárico and Cojedes south-west through Apure to the Colombian border — cattle country of vast ranches, seasonal floods and some of South America's richest wildlife, and the home of the llanero horseman and joropo music. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Venezuela's north-west, from Lake Maracaibo and its oilfields on the Colombian border east through the deserts and colonial towns of Falcón to the farming valleys of Lara, Yaracuy and Portuguesa — the birthplace of the oil industry, the gaita and the country's great Marian pilgrimages. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Venezuela's eastern Caribbean, from the coral atoll of Los Roques and the island of Margarita to the old pearl and salt coast of Sucre, the oil states of Anzoátegui and Monagas and the Orinoco delta facing Trinidad — the country's first Spanish foothold and its classic beach coast. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Venezuela's Andean west, where the last spur of the Andes rises above 4,900 metres in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida and falls to the Colombian border at Táchira, the coffee hills of Trujillo and the edge of the Barinas plains — a region of university towns, páramo villages and devout mountain farmers. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The south-central coast of Vietnam from the Hải Vân Pass to the dry shores of Ninh Thuận, with the Central Highlands behind it — the old heartland of the Cham kingdoms, now home to the fast-growing city of Da Nang, the trading town of Hội An, the beach cities of Quy Nhơn and Nha Trang, and the coffee country of Buôn Ma Thuột.

Northern Vietnam, from the capital Hanoi and the flat, crowded Red River Delta out to the karst seascape of Ha Long Bay and up into the mountains along the Chinese and Laotian borders — the cradle of the Vietnamese state and the home of Hmong, Dao, Tày and Thái hill peoples.

Southern Vietnam's economic heartland, centred on Ho Chi Minh City and its ring of factory provinces, reaching the sea at Vũng Tàu and the dunes of Mũi Né, west to Tây Ninh on the Cambodian border, and up onto the cool Lâm Viên plateau of Đà Lạt and the forests of Cát Tiên.

The narrow strip of Vietnam between the Red River Delta and the Hải Vân Pass, pinched between the Annamite mountains and the sea — the old imperial capital of Huế, the home provinces of Hồ Chí Minh and the Lê kings, the former demilitarised zone, and the great limestone caves of Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng.

The flat, water-laced south-western tip of Vietnam, where the Mekong splits into many mouths before reaching the sea — the country's rice and fruit basket, shaped by Funan, the Khmer and Vietnamese settlers, and stretching from Mỹ Tho and Cần Thơ to Châu Đốc, the island of Phú Quốc and the mangroves of Cà Mau.

The port city of Aden, built in and around an extinct volcano on the Gulf of Aden, and its hinterland of Lahij, Abyan and Ad Dali — once the British colony and protectorates, then the heart of Marxist South Yemen, and since 2015 the temporary seat of the internationally recognised government and the heartland of the southern separatist movement. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The vast, thinly peopled eastern half of Yemen — the Hadramawt valley with its mud-brick towns of Shibam, Seiyun and Tarim, the port of Mukalla, the deserts of Shabwah, the Mahra coast towards Oman and the island of Socotra, the one corner of the country that still receives a trickle of visitors. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

The mountain spine and eastern desert edge of northern Yemen, from the capital Sana'a and the Zaydi heartland of Sa'dah to the terraced green hills of Ibb and the Sabaean ruins of Marib — the country's most populous region and the centre of its civil war. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Yemen's south-western corner, joining the hot Tihama plain along the Red Sea — with the port of Hudaydah, the old scholars' town of Zabid and the coffee harbour of Mocha — to the mountain city of Taiz, long the country's cultural capital and one of the war's most contested cities. This page is written to explain the region, not to encourage travel.

Zambia's rainy, sparsely visited north — the Northern, Muchinga and Luapula provinces between the Luangwa Valley, the Congo border and Lake Tanganyika, taking in the Bemba heartland around Kasama, the Bangweulu wetlands, the great waterfalls of the plateau and Zambia's Lake Tanganyika port at Mpulungu.

The southern and western half of Zambia — the Southern, Western and North-Western provinces — running from Livingstone and the Zambian side of Victoria Falls along the Zambezi to Lake Kariba's northern shore, and west across the Kafue wilderness to the Lozi kingdom's Barotse floodplain and the river's source near Mwinilunga.

Zambia's populous heart and its eastern wilds — the capital Lusaka, the old mining town of Kabwe and the Copperbelt cities of Ndola and Kitwe along the line of rail, and to the east the Luangwa Valley, Chipata and the Lower Zambezi, home to the country's best-known safari parks.

South-central Zimbabwe — the Midlands mining and farming belt around Gweru and Kwekwe, and Masvingo Province, which falls from the plateau to the hot south-eastern lowveld. It holds the stone city of Great Zimbabwe that gave the country its name, the Mutirikwi lake beside it and the wild Gonarezhou park on the Mozambican border.

Northern Zimbabwe — the capital Harare and the three Mashonaland provinces, from the granite country and farmland of the high plateau down the Zambezi escarpment to Lake Kariba's eastern shore and the floodplain of Mana Pools. It is the Shona heartland, the seat of government and the centre of the country's farming economy.

Manicaland, Zimbabwe's eastern province, where the plateau rises into a chain of mountains along the Mozambican border — from Nyanga in the north through the Vumba around Mutare to Chimanimani in the south. A cool, wet, green region of forest, waterfalls, tea estates and pine plantations, it is unlike the rest of the country.

Western and south-western Zimbabwe — the city of Bulawayo and the two Matabeleland provinces, reaching from the Zimbabwean bank of Victoria Falls and the Hwange wilderness to the granite Matobo Hills and the Limpopo. It is the Ndebele heartland, the country's historic industrial centre and home to its most visited sights.