EUROPE

The densest pack: 45 countries in the smallest area of any region here, including most of the world's micro-states. Outlines come small and detailed rather than large and smooth, so the shape round rewards knowing coastlines.

The Balkans carry this pack. Half a dozen countries of similar size and similar shape sharing a peninsula, several of which changed borders within living memory.

The pack draws from 45 countries and territories, 22,683,770 km² of land between them. Russia is the largest and Vatican City the smallest, a range of roughly 16,876,746 to one. 13 of the flags have a near-duplicate somewhere in the archive, the closest pair being Romania and Chad.