Japan

Why it sticks

1. 1

   Made up of over 14,000 islands; the four main ones are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku.

2. 2

   Its name Nihon means 'origin of the sun', hence 'Land of the Rising Sun' and the red sun disc on the flag.

3. 3

   Mount Fuji (3,776 m) is an active volcano that last erupted in 1707.

4. 4

   The Shinkansen bullet train opened in 1964, in time for the Tokyo Olympics.

• Drives on the left; white plates for regular cars, yellow for kei cars, green for commercial vehicles.
• Signs mix kanji with hiragana/katakana; vending machines on every street.
• Concrete utility poles, often with yellow-and-black striped guards at the base.
• Hokkaido has red-and-white downward-pointing arrows above the road edges to mark the road under snow.
• Orange/yellow centre lines mean no overtaking; convex mirrors at almost every blind corner.