Vietnam: Banh Mi

As with many Sandwiches of the World, the banh mi is named for its bread, the Vietnamese style of baguette, introduced under French colonial rule. You can put almost anything in there, but cilantro, pickled carrots, and pate are among the most common. (Credit: Flickr/wEnDaLicious )

England: Chip Butty

There's no better testament to the general blandness of English food than this sandwich: a bunch of french fries between two pieces of bread. Bravo, guys. (Credit: Flickr/Well Preserved )

Chile: Barros Luco

Chile has a few candidates in the running for "national sandwich," but the Barros Luco is actually named after a president--Ramon Barros Luco, Chile's leader betwen 1910 and 1915, would always ask for a beef and melted cheese sandwich during lunch at the restaurant in Chile's National Congress building. There's also the Barros Jarpa, named for the president's cousin (himself a senator), but that's just a ham and cheese. (Credit: Flickr/ffuentes )

Brazil: Bauru

Like the Barros Luco, the Bauru is named after its original biggest fan. Casemiro Pinto Nero, a student in Sao Paolo in the 1930s, went by the nickname "Bauru," the name of his hometown. He asked for a sandwich with mozzarella, roast beef, tomato, and pickled cucumber on a French bun with most of the bread scooped out, and created a national hit. (Credit: obagastronomia )

Senegal: The Bean Sandwich

The street vendors of Dakar have a unique take on the sandwich, eschewing meat in favor of a big pile of legumes and onions. Looks great, actually. (Credit: Albatrossic )

Austria: Bosna

Pop a brat inside grilled white bread, and add some onions and mustard, and you've got Austria's most popular sandwich! It's basically a hot dog, but what do you expect in one of the most sausage-dense regions of the world? (Credit: wikimedia )

Mexico (Part 1): Cemita

Like the Banh Mi, the Cemita is named for its bread, a round, sesame-covered roll that originally comes from Puebla, Mexico. You'll usually find sliced avocado, melty white cheese, red hot sauce, and some kind of meat in a cemita. They are, according to some, the best sandwiches in the world. (Credit: Flickr/roboppy )

Mexico (Part 2): Torta

The main difference between a torta and a cemita is the bread--tortas are typically made on a long, crusty kind of roll, close to French bread. But you can find tortas in all shapes and sizes, as long as there aren't any sesame seeds on the bun (because that, then, is a cemita). (Credit: Flickr/Dalboz17 )

Uruguay: Chivito

The Chivito is a serious sandwich. The most basic models have churrasco beef, mayo, olives, mozzarella, and tomatoes, but from there, you can add on bacon, fried eggs, or ham, and the chivito keeps taking it, just like the package-hauling little goats for which they're (allegedly) named. (Credit: wikimedia )

France: Croque Madame

We could have picked the Croque-monsieur, or any variety of sandwiches in baguettes, for France, but the Croque-madame takes the brioche for being the most epic of the French sandwiches. You take your normal Croque-monsieur, a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, and pop a fried egg on top. C'est magnifique. (Credit: Flickr/lexnger )

Cuba: Cuban

Duh. There's some contention over whether or not the Cuban was actually invented in Cuba or Florida, but either way it's a sandwich made of crusty Cuban bread, mustard, roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, and a layer of pickles. (Credit: Flickr/tastytouring )

Turkey: Doner Kebab

Slice some meat off a rotating spit, pop it with some lettuce, tomato, and sauce into some fluffy flatbread, and you've got one of the world's most popular sandwiches. Yes, it's usually in pocket-form, but more sandwichy varieties do exist! (Credit: wikimedia )

Trinidad and Tobago: Doubles

This Caribbean invention wins points in the arena of bread innovation--instead of just using some boring old loaf, doubles is made with two (hence the name) pieces of fried dough. Great idea. Then you fill it up with curried chickpeas, add some hot sauce, and call it a sandwich. (Credit: Flickr/Gary Soup )

Portugal: Francesinha

Meaning "Little Frenchie" in Portuguese, the Francesinha is something like a turbo croque-monsieur. It's filled with ham, sausage, or steak, actually covered in melted cheese, and topped off with a tomato and beer sauce whose recipes restaurants keep as trade secrets. This is not a sandwich you can really eat with your hands, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. (Credit: Flickr/fortes )

South Africa: Gatsby

One story suggests that this sandwich, basically South Africa's version of a hoagie, was named after the 1974 movie version of The Great Gatsby , starring Robert Redford, since the sandwich was also very popular. Seems like a stretch, but who knows! You can put anything in it, but french fries are often standard. (Credit: Flickr/iferneinez )

Canada (Well, Quebec): Hot Chicken

A little less exciting than the Nashville fried chicken with the same name, the Quebecois Hot Chicken Sandwich is just shredded chicken between some bread, doused (bien sur) in gravy. (Credit: Flickr/klwatts )

The Netherlands: Broodje Kroket

This Dutch snack is almost like a sandwich inside another sandwich--the kroket in question is fried with a beefy sauce inside, and then put inside a roll. It's estimated that the average Dutchperson eats 29 of these (with or without the bun) per year. (Credit: Flickr/bw14 )

Belgium: Mitraillette

The Belgians take their frites very seriously, so it's only natural that their national sandwich would be mostly made up of fries, nestled on top of some kind of meat. And like so many other sandwiches, the name comes from the bread: baguette is French for "rifle," and mitraillette, which uses a half-baguette, is French for "submachine gun." Belgians love wordplay! (Credit: Flickr/Simon Aughton )

Italy: Panini

In Italy, the rules for what makes a "panino" are a little stricter than at your local Panera. There, a panino can't be made with sliced bread (that's a tramezzini), and doesn't necessarily have to be pressed in a grill. And surprisingly, they've only been popular in Italy since the 70s, when Milanese bars started serving them to cater to a new generation of kids with money to burn. The paninari , as they were called, would meet at panini shops to show off their fancy, name-brand clothes and generally loiter around, as teenagers are wont to do. (Credit: Flickr/bwalsh )

Serbia: Pljeskavica

This Balkan patty sandwich (close to a burger, but not quite) is usually made with a mix of meats--lamb, pork, beef, or veal--and served either as a plate (not a sandwich) or in a pita (a sandwich!). (Credit: Flickr/hepp )

Australia: Prawn Rolls

Since vegemite is just as likely to show up on toast as it is in a true sandwich, the Prawn Roll reigns supreme in Australia's national sandwich category. It's just a bunch of prawns, some lettuce, and some sauce in a white bread roll. No barbie required. (Credit: Flickr/Leonard John Matthews )

Malaysia/Singapore: Roti John

Often open-faced, which gets into dicey sandwich-definition territory, the Roti John stuffs a baguette with minced meat, sardines, eggs, chopped onions, and some kind of spicy sauce. (Credit: Flickr/su-lin )

China: Rou Jia Mo

Finding a true sandwich in China, where bread isn't particularly popular, is a little bit difficult, but the Rou Jia Mo, which just means "meat sandwich," is pretty close. It's pretty much just spicy meat in a chewy bun. Hard to go wrong. (Credit: Flickr/wallyg )

India: Vada Pav

This popular Indian street food is a rare vegetarian sandwich, made with a spiced potato fritter (a batata vada) squished between a bun. You can also get it with cheese, or with a samosa instead of a fritter, but you can get the basic potato model almost anywhere in the country. (Credit: Flickr/gsz )

Japan: Yakisoba

Why, exactly, some Japanese sandwich entrepreneur decided it was a good idea to put fried noodles inside a sandwich is a mystery to us, but this carbo-bomb is surprisingly tasty, and available at pretty much any convenience store in Japan (and some in the U.S., too). If you're inspired, let us know how that spaghetti panino turns out. (Credit: Flickr/bionicgrrl )

Poland: Zapiekanka

These Polish sandwiches are a little closer to personal pizzas than true sandwiches, but we had to include them just for their epic size. A Zapiekanka (meaning "roasted") is just a halved baguette topped with cheese and whatever else you want. (Credit: Flickr/Azul Neon )

Finland: Porilainen

Available all over Finland, the Porilainen is a simple sandwich of white bread and a big chunk of sausage, sometimes accompanied by pickle and onion relish, and topped with ketchup, mayo, and mustard. (Credit: wikimedia )

America is a land rich with iconic sandwiches, from the stately muffuletta of New Orleans to the delicate lobster roll of coastal Maine. But not all countries are as big, or as sandwich-happy, as ours, and many have their own iconic national sandwiches to contribute to the international sandwich community. So here, to top off this glorious Sandwich Week, are 28 of the world's iconic sandwiches, arranged in no particular order.

For a sandwich to make the cut, it had to be either endemic to its homeland or strongly identified (panini, for instance, are everywhere, but they're clearly Italian), and had to be made with bread, sliced in some manner. Pockets were avoided where possible, but for some parts of the world, bread pockets are the main form of food folder, making some exceptions inevitable. And before you speed-click through this and go to write some angry comments: falafel didn't make the list because it's hard to call it any one nation's "national sandwich," and it would be too contentious to even try.

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