Several beautiful elements from the Czech Republic come together in this landscape photograph: the rolling hills of Southern Moravia, a typical small village with traditional terracotta red roofs, an expansive field of poppies, and a road-side patch of wild poppies lining the field. Combine that with a wonderful summer day with some white clouds overhead and I was ready to stay there for hours!

Based on FAOSTAT, the Czech Republic is the world's largest producer of poppy seeds in the world with 12,814 tons in 2012! It's the largest producer not per capita, but in total. Not bad for a country of 10.5 million people. The second is Spain with half the production and population of 47 million.

Now you may ask, why so much poppy seed production? The best way to get an answer is to travel there and order some signature dishes that come with ground poppy seeds in large doses. And they're delicious!