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Ethiopia

Driving Directions Ethiopia

ETHIOPIA is a landlocked, east African republic that borders Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea. Formerly known as Abyssinia, the country is dominated by a high, central plateau of volcanic rock from which rise rugged mountains ascending to heights of 4,572 meters or 15,000 feet. The Great African Rift Valley divides the plateau into the higher, more rugged, and extensive Western Highlands and the Eastern Highlands’ smaller area. The plateau is deeply dissected by river valleys forming towering cliffs and escarpments, especially in the northeast.

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Falkland Islands

Driving Directions Falkland Islands

FALKLAND ISLANDS (Islas Malvinas) are situated in the South Atlantic about 650 kilometers or 410 miles east of southern Argentina. They are a British Crown Colony consisting of two large islands (West and East Falkland), separated by the 16-kilometer or 10-mile-wide Falkland Sound and surrounded by some 200 smaller islands. In 1982, the islands were invaded by Argentina, who had long laid claim to these Islas Malvinas’, only to be recaptured by a British marine task force a few months later.

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Faroe Islands

Driving Directions Faroe Islands

FAROE (FAEROE) ISLANDS (Foroyar) has been a self-governing region of Denmark since 1948. They consist of a group of 18 basaltic islands and situated in the North Atlantic, approximately halfway between the Shetland Islands and Iceland. The landscape of these islands characterized by steep, stepped peaks rising out of the sea to nearly 900 meters or 3,000 feet and glaciated, trough-shaped valleys.

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Fiji

Driving Directions Fiji

FIJI is a part of Melanesia and comprises more than 800 islands, only about 100 inhabited. It is one of the largest nations in the western Pacific and situated around the 180° International Date Line and about 17° south of the Equator. The two main islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, are extinct volcanoes, and most of the islands in the group fringed with coral reefs.

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Finland

Driving Directions Finland

FINLAND is a north European republic with about a third of its territo­ry lying within the Arctic Circle. A Scandinavian country of forests, lakes, and islands shares borders with Sweden in the northwest, Norway in the north, and the Russian Federation in the east. Its coastline lies along the Gulf of Bothnia in the west and southwest and the Gulf of Finland in the south. Both of which are arms of the Baltic Sea. Some 30,000 islands and islets line Finland’s coast, with the densest concentration in the southwest and south. The most important is the 6,500 Ahvenanmaa or Aland Islands, which lie in the Gulf of Bothnia between the mainlands of Finland and Sweden.

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France

Driving Directions France

FRANCE is the largest country in Western Europe with coastlines on the English Channel, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. It shares borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain.

The lowest parts of the country are the great basins and low-lying plains of the north and southwest, which rise to meet the Massif Central, an extensive upland area, and the higher Alps’ mountains, Jura, and the Pyrenees. Mont Blanc on the FranceItaly border is the highest point in the Alps at 4,807 meters or 15,770 feet.

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French Polynesia

Driving Directions French Polynesia

FRENCH POLYNESIA is an island territory whose links with France mean a relatively high standard of living for its citizens. It consists of 5 separate archipelagoes whose islands scattered between the Cook Islands to the west and the Pitcairn Islands to the east over 4 million square kilometers or 1.5 million square miles of the south­east Pacific Ocean. Most of the islands are mountainous and volcanic, but some are low-lying coral atolls.

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Gabon

Driving Directions Gabon

GABON is a small republic in west-central Africa that straddles the Equator. It comprises the land which surrounds the Ogooué river basin and its tributaries, and most of the country covered with lush tropical rainforests.

Beyond the coastal plain and the flatter land of the valley bot­toms, Gabon is ringed by upland plateaux and mountains ranging in height from 900-1,575 meters or 3,000-5,167 feet.

The forests con­tain a huge diversity of plants and animals, including commercially valu­able trees harvested for export. It was at Lambarene in east Gabon that Albert Schweitzer, the medical missionary, had his hospital.

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Gambia

Driving Directions Gambia

GAMBIA is the smallest country in Africa. The Republic of the Gambia comprises a small finger of land, pushing eastwards into Senegal from the Atlantic coast in a narrow band along either side of the Gambia River.

The republic is enclosed on all its landward sides by the territory of Senegal. It mostly does not exceed 24 kilometers or 15 miles in width, only broadening to 48 kilometers or 30 miles in the east. The country is divided along its entire length by the River Gambia, which can only be crossed at two main ferry crossings.

The country consists of the river and the low plateau through which it flows interspersed with a few small, flattened hills.

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Georgia

Driving Directions Georgia

GEORGIA, a republic in the southwest of the former USSR, gained full independence from Russia in 1991. It shares borders with Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Russian Federation and is bounded to the west by the Black Sea. The country incorporates the breakaway repub­lic of Abkhazia and the semi-autonomous regions of Adzharia and South Ossetia. It consists of a coastal plain and low-lying river valleys sandwiched between two high mountain ranges – the Great Caucasus in the north and the Lesser Caucasus in the south.

The climate on the coast is moist and warm, while inland, it is dry, with hot summers and cold winters. Glaciers and snowfields occur on the highest peaks of the Caucasus Mountains. About one-third of the country is forested, with conifers on the mountain slopes and deciduous species lower down. Wildlife includes deer, lynx, wolf, wild boar, and eagle.

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