Qatar

Qatar is a Middle Eastern country whose national motto is "The letter 'u' is for pussies." Qatar is located on the Qatar Peninsula (sort of an Arabian answer to Michigan) bordering Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf in an area which is unarguably where Qatar is located. Qatar is an absolute monarchy in which all of the power belongs to an Emir who probably doesn't force his subjects to dance for his amusement nearly as much as I would, were I in his position. The current Emir is Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, and every other position of power is occupied by someone in his family who has those same names in a different sequence, meaning every government session eventually devolves into a really unfunny Abbott and Costello routine. Owing to its vast oil resources, Qatar had the highest GDP in the world last year, but remains pretty iffy on some human rights issues, proving that there's some truth in the old Beatles lyric: "I don't care too much for money / Money can't buy me fair treatment of Asian migrant laborers." The capital, Doha, is home to the Al Jazeera news network. Seriously, I swear to God it is. Why would I make that up? Fine, don't believe me? Look it up. See? It says so right there on Wikipedia. Honestly, I don't know why you wouldn't just trust me on that one.

Qatar is slated to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup for reasons that completely elude everyone.

Portugal

Portugal is a country located in southwestern Europe on the part of the Iberian Peninsula that Spain didn't want. For many years, the area which we now know as Portugal was just a place that a bunch of conquering tribes with dumb haircuts and funny languages had stomped over so that they could look at the ocean without having to be in France at the same time. At some point in what most people would probably consider to be history, the area which is now Portugal was conquered by the Moors. The Moors were pretty Muslimy, which didn't sit well with the more Catholicky crowd of dudes that eventually founded the first Portugal™ in 868 after a certain amount of unpleasantness. Over time, Portugal grew to become one of the most powerful countries in the world. That fell off pretty sharply, like, 300 years ago, but some Portuguese people are probably still proud of it, and I think that's adorable. On the upside, Portugal did manage to spread the language of Portuguese to Brazil, ultimately making South America more confusing than it really needed to be. The capital is Lisbon, if you catch my drift. I don't know what I meant by that.

Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo is Portugal's most famous douchebag, but most likely not its biggest.

Poland

Poland is a country in central Europe. Due to its location between Russia and Germany, two countries that have never had a great deal of impulse control, Poland has historically had a really difficult time not being a part of Germany or Russia. The Polish people, who you're apparently not supposed to call Polacks (but whenever possible, I do anyway) are the subject of a series of jokes that nobody thinks are funny anymore, the punchlines of which are about how Polacks (Yeah, I said it. What?) are stupid. One example of a stupid Polack (I said it again!) is Nicolaus Copernicus, who knew stuff about space that no one had ever known before, but only because he was born in the 15th century and nobody knew anything about space then. Even I know more about space than that guy, and I'm technically not even a scientist (Author's Note: Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" is available on Netflix Instant). The Polish language is notable for sounding more like the noise a person makes when he or she vomits than any other language except for maybe Hungarian, but does really Hungarian count anyway? It probably does.

Here is a buffalo-type thing that apparently lives in Poland.

Philippines

The Philippines (named for famed murderer/record producer Phil Spector) is an island nation located in the western Pacific Ocean. The country is comprised of 7107 separate islands, but remember you guys, it's quality, not quantity. If you want to see a whole lot of Filipinos hanging out in one place, your best bet is Luzon, the archipelago's largest, populous-est and [another superlative] island, located 250 kilometers from Taiwan across the Luzon Strait (which Wikipedia describes as "an important strait," but frankly I don't see it). Luzon is the location of Manila, the capital of the Philippines and the center of the 11th-largest metropolitan area in the world ("Bigger than Kolkata!" "What's Kolkata?" "It's in India!"). Filipinos speak way too many different languages, but the most popular is Tagalog, which I haven't researched, but I think is kind of like when you imitate Spanish by just speaking English while doing a really terrible, vaguely racist Spanish accent. In fact, I'm pretty sure you can just speak any language and Filipinos will be able to understand you as long as you're doing your best Antonio Banderas impression. At the very least, they might think it's funny.

These particular Filipinos will probably not be amused by your Antonio Banderas impression (unless it's really good).

Peru

Peru is an outrageous place in South America where people used to live in stone cities on top of mountains because they hated it when anything was convenient. The Inca civilization, as seen in the film "The Emperor's New Groove" (that was Inca, right?), was having what I would characterize based on my research as a pretty marvelous time up until the early 16th century, when they were conquistadored pretty heavily by Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish guy with a weird hat and a creepy beard. Peru achieved independence in 1821 and I think that's terrific. I've always liked Peru because people from there are called "Peruvians" and I like to call them "Pe-groove-ians" (Author's Note: This is merely an obnoxious nickname and not in any way a slur of the Peruvian people. Some of my best friends are Peruvians. Five of them are. I have five Peruvian best friends.). Lima, the capital, is home to over seven million residents. Wow! That's more than Peoria, Buffalo and Sacramento combined!

Nice to look at, but I wouldn't wanna live there.

Paraguay

Paraguay (Author's Note: I am furious with myself for using that "Pa-'poo'-a" joke on the last entry because now I can't make a joke about "Para-GAY" which would be even more hilarious) is a landlocked South American nation which has, due to its central position within the continent, been nicknamed "The Heart of America." Anatomically speaking, I think "The Appendix of America" would be more accurate, but that of course carries all sorts of other connotations, and I would prefer not to recommend a Paraguectomy until all the facts are in. Wow. I've already filled pretty much all the space I wanted to without ever actually saying anything about the country in question. The capital is Asunción. There. Now you've learned something.

Asunción, seen here in what appears to be a screenshot from some obscure Paraguayan "Cloverfield" spinoff.

Papua New Guinea

Papua (more like Pa-"poo"-a, am I right? Ladies?) New Guinea is a country occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, which is located in Oceania and, oddly, nowhere near regular Guinea. New Guinea is thought to be one of the first landmasses on which humans lived after Africa and Eurasia, with archaeologists having discovered the remains of people who were trundling about the island more than 50,000 years ago (but don't do much trundling anymore [because they're dead]). Papua New Guinea is a very poor country, with most of its population making way less money than my dad does. 82% of the Papua New Guinean population lives outside of its urban centers and gets by on whatever Papua New Guinean crops they can coax out of the Papua New Guinean soil. Papua New Guinea is located right on the edge of the Pacific Ring of Fire (insert unfunny pun about buttholes) and is frequently hit by earthquakes and tsunamis, as well as being made almost entirely out of volcanoes; crippling poverty and near-constant natural disasters go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Mount Tarvurvur: Jelly, for the purposes of this simile.