Azerbaijan

Actually true

• Natural gas fires really do burn continuously here

  Yanar Dag, a hillside near Baku, has burned nonstop for over 65 years fed by underground gas seepage.

• Azerbaijan is a major oil producer with deep history in it

  Baku had the world's first industrial oil wells in the 1840s, decades before Texas or Saudi Arabia.

• Baku hosts a Formula 1 street race

  The Baku City Circuit winds through the medieval Old City walls and the modern seafront boulevard.

• Mugham music is a genuinely ancient art form

  This improvisational vocal and instrumental tradition, UNESCO-listed, dates back centuries and blends Persian and Turkic influences.

Commonly believed, wrong

• "Azerbaijan is part of the Middle East"

  It's in the South Caucasus, bordering the Caspian Sea, with a distinct Turkic language and secular Muslim-majority culture.

• "It's culturally identical to Turkey or Iran"

  Despite Turkic language ties to Turkey and historic Persian influence, Azerbaijan has its own distinct traditions and Soviet-era layered identity.

• "It's all desert"

  Azerbaijan has subtropical Caspian coastline, the Caucasus Mountains, and even the world's largest concentration of mud volcanoes.

• "Baku is a small, undeveloped city"

  It's a glittering modern metropolis with futuristic architecture funded by decades of oil wealth.