Patchwork fields, yellow rapeseed, green crops, tilled earth

A hamlet? Hardly

You wouldn't gather it from this photo, but we're looking at the most populous state in the European Union's most populous nation. While these checkerboard farms grow grains and veggies, not fruit, they lie smack in the center of the Blue Banana: The sweeping region of Europe that includes the bulk of the continent's people and industry. Even as part of the most urbanized region in Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia still contains more than 50% farmland like this—after all, the Banana's 100 million people gotta eat.