Antarctica is best known as the barren southernmost continent, home to glistening glaciers and snow-packed peaks that never seem to melt. But despite being surrounded by an endless supply of frozen water, the coldest continent on Earth is also one of the driest — so dry, in fact, it’s technically considered a desert.

Although the parched landscapes of Death Valley or the Sahara may spring to mind when we visualize a desert, the ecosystem classification has more to do with precipitation than temperature. True deserts typically receive less than 9.8 inches of rainfall per year. Antarctica, which averages just 2 inches of annual precipitation, meets this definition; at 5.5 million square miles, it reigns as the world’s largest and coldest desert. In comparison, Africa’s Sahara desert — the world’s largest hot desert — spans just 3.6 million square miles; its dusty sand dunes receive about an inch more rainfall than Antarctica does per year.

You can buy land in Antarctica.

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You can explore Antarctica as a tourist, but owning a chunk of land on the southernmost continent is impossible. The Antarctic Treaty, signed by 56 countries since 1959, bans ownership of the landmass, and requires it to be used only for “peaceful purposes.”

Antarctica’s harsh climate doesn’t equally share its annual allotment of rain, and some areas are practically devoid of showers. The McMurdo Dry Valleys, a snow-free region located west of the McMurdo Sound, are considered one of the driest places on Earth. Some researchers believe the flat-topped hills haven’t seen measurable precipitation or flowing water in 14 million years — an extreme drought that’s unlikely to end any time soon thanks to the placement of nearby mountains, freezing temperatures, and unforgivingly strong winds that can reach up to 200 miles per hour.

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As the largest and smallest states by area, Alaska and Rhode Island are in some ways diametrically opposed. But they do share one particular quirk: Each has just one area code. In fact, there are a total of 11 U.S. states whose residents use the same area code — Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming — and the reason has to do with the lower population numbers in those locations.

Helena, Montana, was once home to the most millionaires per capita.

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In 1864, Helena was founded as a camp for miners. Within a few years, many of the town’s residents saw their wealth skyrocket. By 1888, there were around 50 millionaires living among the 12,000 locals, making Helena home to the most millionaires per capita in the world.

In 1947, AT&T introduced area codes in an effort to standardize phone numbers across the United States and parts of Canada. The company issued 86 original area codes that are still in use today; the more well populated a state was, the more likely it was to be allotted multiple area codes. Back then, it was common practice for the middle digit to be “0” if the area code covered an entire state, and “1” if it covered only a portion. Today, many states have grown large enough to be given additional area codes, but there are still 11 holdouts. For instance, every inch of Alaska’s 665,384 square miles uses the same 907 area code. The same is true for the fourth largest state by area, Montana, whose residential phone numbers all start with 406. Many of these 11 states have come to embrace their singular area codes as an emblem of local pride. You’ll often find those three digits emblazoned on shirts, craft beers, bumper stickers, and other souvenirs sold throughout each state.

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Passengers aboard Loganair Flight LM711, which travels 1.7 miles between the Scottish islands of Westray and Papa Westray, are airborne very briefly. On a good day, the world’s shortest commercial flight takes less than a minute — as little as 53 seconds, in fact. There’s no co-pilot, no lavatory, and only eight passengers aboard the Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander aircraft. Tickets for the journey, which is made just two or three times a day, cost roughly $22. Both Westray and Papa Westray are part of the Orkney archipelago, a sparsely populated set of islands that have proved popular with adventurous travelers in search of a scenic journey that happens to include a record-setting flight.

Scotland doesn’t have an official national anthem.

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The country has never adopted an official anthem, and in 2015 the Scottish government announced it has “no current plans” to do so. However, “Flower of Scotland” continues to serve as an unofficial anthem at international sporting events.

Most of the world’s other shortest flights are likewise between islands. Those who’d prefer not to take the hour-long ferry connecting the Greek isles of Karpathos and Kasos can instead fly between them in just five minutes. Meanwhile, passengers flying the 12 miles from Sint Maarten (one of the Netherlands’ constituent countries) to Anguilla (a British Overseas Territory) can expect to be in the air for closer to 10 minutes.

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It’s not unusual for cities to share names, but it happens less frequently with countries. Yet four nations — three of which are in Africa — use the word “Guinea” in their titles: Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, and Papua New Guinea. How is it possible to have so many countries using the same word? It has to do with the colonization of Western Africa. The exact origin of the word “Guinea” is unknown, though some linguists believe the term comes from the Portuguese word “Guiné,” which appeared around the mid-1400s to describe a region south of the Senegal River along Africa’s western coast. A competing theory suggests that the name comes from Djenné, an ancient city in modern Mali that was an important stop along the trans-Saharan gold trading route; it’s possible “Djenné” transformed into “Genawah,” which was then used to describe all people in Western Africa. 

An African country has Spanish as one of its official languages.

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Equatorial Guinea is the only country on the African continent to have Spanish as one of its official languages, along with French and Portuguese. The nation was a colony of Spain from 1778 through 1968; today about 67% of its citizens can speak Spanish.

By the late 1880s, many European countries had laid claim to African land in a race historians call the “Scramble for Africa.” Spain, France, and Portugal (among other powers) all shared control of the Guinea region in Western Africa; the area was divided, and land was generally identified by its controlling country. However, the names we know today wouldn’t emerge until well into the 20th century, when each nation broke away from European control. French Guinea retained the name Guinea after gaining independence in 1958, Spanish Guinea became Equatorial Guinea in 1963, and Portuguese Guinea took on the name Guinea-Bissau (referencing its capital city Bissau) in 1974.

As for Papua New Guinea, located thousands of miles to the east across the Indian Ocean, two explorers gave it its name. In 1526, Portuguese sailor Jorge de Meneses dubbed part of the island “ilhas dos Papuas,” from the Malay word papuwah (referencing the islanders’ curly hair), while Spanish explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez declared another portion New Guinea, believing its citizens resembled the people of Africa’s Guinea coast.

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