Jordan

Jordan is a small country in the Middle East, known by many as a place where Jesus used to hang out way back in the day. Following an impressive college career with the University of North Carolina, Jordan became the first Asian country to play in the NBA when it was drafted by the Chicago Bulls with the third overall pick in 1984. It went on to play a crucial role in the six NBA Championships won by the Bulls during the 1990s, and is considered by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time (Saudi Arabia has been known to claim that Kobe Bryant is better, but most scholars on the Middle East agree that this is only sour grapes). Because of its small size and its location adjacent to Iraq, Israel, and the Sinai Peninsula, most Jordanians are never very far from having their day completely ruined.

Jordan's lucrative Nike sponsorship has long been a source of resentment for neighboring countries.

Japan

Japan is a country consisting of almost 7,000 islands located off the coast of East Asia. Though sometimes known as the "Land of the Rising Sun," this is a misnomer because the rising sun is actually located in outer space. The capital, Tokyo, has a higher population than any other urban conurbation in the world (also: more Japanese people). Japan officially renounced the right to declare war in 1947, after we rocked their shit in World War II - rubbing that in is generally considered to be an impolite move, but boy is it funny from time to time. Despite its being home to a proud civilization that has existed in some form since prehistoric times, if Japan is brought up in conversation with most regular dudes, the first things they will think of are karaoke and weird animated pornography.

The Japanese invented "Power Rangers." You're welcome.

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island in the Caribbean with more threatening-looking black people per capita than just about any other nation in the world. Though mainly known for its gorgeous beaches, reggae music and marijuana, Jamaica's capital, Kingston, is also a pretty terrific place if you're into violent crime. Some of its best-known residents have included Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Dr. No. People from Jamaica frequently say things like "Ya mon," "Irie," and "Hey dude, stop being a racist."

Sean Kingston is a solid example of a person who is not from Jamaica.

Italy

Italy is a country in southern Europe that would probably be okay if not for the fact that it is almost completely full of Italians. The capital is Rome, center of an ancient civilization that, at one point, stretched all the way into the British isles (mainly just so Roman officers would have a place to send soldiers they really didn't like). The ancient Romans basically invented stealing ideas from other cultures, making them lamer and then taking credit for them; in many ways, Roman mythology can be seen as an ancient precursor to Taco Bell. Florence, Italy was home to the Renaissance, a cultural movement that spanned the 14th to 17th centuries and extended all across Europe, providing us with some sweet-ass paintings and a bunch of sculptures of naked dudes with terrific muscles and tiny penises. One of the most famous Renaissance artists was Leonardo Da Vinci, who was the first to conceptualize a helicopter and a bunch of other awesome scientific shit, but is best remembered for this stupid painting of a woman who's kind of smiling, but not really. Over the past century, Italy has made a number of innovations in doing a terrible job of running a country, providing the world with such great steps backward as fascism and Silvio Berlusconi.

Seriously guys, she's not even that hot.

Israel

Israel is a country in the Middle East that was invented by God 6,000 years ago, because he loved his chosen people so much that he decided they deserved to have a chunk of mostly miserable desert on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. Israel didn't officially become a nation until 1948, when the Jewish conspiracy controlling the universe connived to make the United Nations give them their own sovereign nation located in that miserable desert. Israeli history since then has consisted mainly of a series of armed conflicts that erupted every time that Egypt, Jordan and Syria needed a quick reminder of who their daddy was.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Jewish Prime Minister.

Ireland

The Republic of Ireland is one of the main places where young, intoxicated Americans claim to be from for some stupid reason. Known for its famous drunks, potatoes, pretentious modernist writers, and things which are green, the Republic of Ireland was getting pushed around by England until 1919, when the United Kingdom reluctantly said goodbye forever to probably the most adorable accent it had in its considerable arsenal. Every March 17th, the Irish and everyone else who feels they need a decent excuse to get sloshed on a weekday celebrate St. Patrick's Day (or, as the English refer to it, "The Day When All Those Snakes Showed Up Out of Fucking Nowhere").

Irish author James Joyce wrote "Ulysses," a 1,000-word book about what a smart fellow he was.

Iraq

Iraq is a [formerly evil] Middle Eastern nation that hasn't been an enjoyable place for anyone to live since about, well, a long time ago (Author's Note: A Google search of "When Iraq was last an enjoyable place to live" yielded two results, and they were both pornography). For many years, the Iraqis lived under the thumb of Saddam Hussein, a psychotic midget used car salesman who completely ruined the Tom Selleck Mustache™ for everybody (except for Tom Selleck). He reigned with an iron fist (well, really just a regular fist [full of chemical weapons]) until 2003, when an awesome guy named George W. Bush came along and boldly liberated those guys. As far as I know, they still haven't thanked him for that.

Dude had a throne. He was old-school.

Iran

Iran is a[n evil] nation located in the Middle East between Afghanistan and Iraq in what many have described as "a shitty place to put a country." Though Iran contains a wide array of ethnic groups, its primary population consists of Persians, who can travel through time and hate it when you call them Arabs. One famous Iranian is president/star of the popular television series "Mahmoud Says the Darnedest Things," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His international fame has run into a bit of an obstacle in that about eight percent of the people who have heard of him actually know how to pronounce his name (Author's Note: For fuck's sake people, it's not even really that difficult).

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei did not invent that beard - he just perfected it.

Indonesia

Indonesia is a nation consisting of roughly a buttload [over 17,000] of islands off the coast of southeast Asia. It contains about 4% of the people who exist and has more Muslims than anyone else (take that, Nigeria!). Formerly known as the place where the Dutch got all their good drugs, Indonesia achieved independence from the Netherlands in 1945 when the Japanese, who were in a rotten mood and not taking shit from most anybody in those days, showed up and said "Hey guys, could you leave please?"

Hirohito: Passive-aggressive much?

India

India (or Native America) is a country in south Asia which contains more than a billion people (around 236 Wisconsins, if you're the sort of person who measures population in Wisconsins), making it the second-largest country in the world behind China. If you've lost your job recently, you can probably find it in India, where someone else is now doing it for an annual salary of eight dollars and a cheese sandwich. The most popular sport in India is cricket, a game of English origin which is kind of like a cross between baseball and a bunch of guys waiting for the bus.

Some of the things you can do while in India are things that I would not typically recommend.

Iceland

Iceland is an island in the north Atlantic Ocean that everybody knows is green, versus Greenland, which is icy, because of the movie "D2: The Mighty Ducks." However, many of these people might be surprised to discover that Iceland has a relative dearth of evil hockey players compared to, say, the Czech Republic or Canada. Another thing that Iceland is really lacking at the moment is money, with their financial system having, as I understand it, driven a car off a cliff while on fire back in 2008. Its population is split into two main categories: Icelandic people and magical fairies. Its capital, Reykjavik, is the northernmost capital city in the world. I know that because it was a Trivial Pursuit question once.

Serious business.

Hungary

Hungary (Hungarians call it "Magyar" because they're stupid) is a country in Eastern Europe that has probably seen more people giving each other a rough time than just about anywhere. One of the oldest countries in Europe, Hungary has, over the past millennium, played host to hundreds of vicious showdowns between various people whose gods were hella pissed at each other, topped off with about 40 years of pretty non-terrific communism starting at the end of World War 2 (just to make sure they learned their lesson). The Hungarian language is so completely retarded that most native Hungarians actually only pretend to know how to speak it. The Hungarian coat of arms prominently features the Holy Crown of Hungary, a neat-looking hat that the Pope sent them a thousand years ago for being such a great bunch of dudes.

The crown is not supposed to look this jaunty but some drunken Hungarian dropped it down a bunch of stairs in the 17th century. Whoops.

Honduras

Honduras (pronounced "owned-yer-azz") is a small Central American country which has drawn the resentment of its neighbors El Salvador and Guatemala by connecting them, however tenuously, to what they typically refer to as "fucking Nicaragua." The capital is Tegucigalpa, which is at least twice as much fun to say as it could possibly be to live there. The national anthem is "National Anthem of Honduras" and the national dish is Honduran food.

A night-time view of Tegucigalpa, which apparently looks a lot like St. Regis, Montana.

Haiti

Haiti is the half of Hispaniola that was recently voted "Most Likely to Spontaneously Disappear into the Caribbean Without the Slightest Warning" by a panel of experts in a Radison hotel ballroom somewhere. Haiti was founded in 1804 by former slaves who boldly rose up and threw off the shackles of the French, only to throw on the shackles of disease, crippling poverty, and basically merciless destruction from every possible direction. Almost nothing in this country's history has not been a bummer. The "capital" is Port-au-Prince, a really big, mashed-up mound of concrete on the western face of the island.

Anderson Cooper, CNN anchor/mayor of Port-au-Prince.

Guyana

Guyana is a small former British colony on the north coast of South America among a couple of other little bitch countries that speak Dutch or something. Its capital is Georgetown, a port city of some 200,000 residents. However, more people have probably heard of Jonestown, a temporary settlement near the Venezuelan border where, in 1978, more than 900 people offed themselves en-masse because some douche from Indiana told them to. Needless to say, the Guyanese tourism industry has never recovered.

Jim Jones: Just like Jesus except that Jesus wasn't a total asshole.