Officially declared Colombia’s national sport in 2000, tejo dates back to Colombian indigenous groups approximately 500 years ago. The popular throwing sport, often played in bars with plenty of beer on hand, involves players throwing a heavy steel disk at a board 20 yards away dotted with paper pouch targets — except, they’re filled with gunpowder and explode on impact.

Move over, Texas: Chile has their own version of the rodeo, so beloved that it is considered the country’s national sport. Rodeo season runs every September to April and concludes with the national finals near Santiago. Chilean cowboys who practice rodeo are called "huasos," dressed in elegant ponchos and flat-brimmed hats called "chupallas."

The first baseball league in Latin America was founded in Cuba in 1878. The sport was introduced to the island nation the previous decade when students returned from the U.S. with a baseball and a bat — since then, it has become not only the national sport of Cuba but also a huge part of Cuban cultural identity.

Though the origins of baseball are murky, some consider oina, a traditional Romanian sport that dates to the 14th century, the precursor to the modern sport, brought over by immigrants in the 19th century. Quite similar to baseball, oina is played with a bat and ball. The sport has waned considerably in popularity in recent years and is now only played by amateurs.

Japan is the only country in the world where sumo wrestling is practiced professionally. The country’s national sport was created more than 1,500 years ago, originally as a way to entertain and honor the Shinto deities. There are no weight restrictions in sumo wrestling, which is why size is usually an advantage. Each year, six 15-day sumo tournaments are held in various Japanese cities.

Dousing yourself in olive oil might seem an odd way to start a wrestling match, but in Turkey, that's exactly what wrestlers do for their national sport, which traces back to ancient times. Opponents don a pair of leather pants called a kispet and cover their bodies with olive oil; to win, the wrestler must twist his opponent into a position where his belly button faces the sky.

Argentina may be known for famous soccer (“fútbol”) stars like Lionel Messi, but the country’s national sport is a lesser-known game called “juego del pato,” or “pato” for short. Pato is played with a leather ball, which has six unique handles that players use to attempt to tug the ball away, all while standing on their horse’s stirrups.

Archery became the official national sport of Bhutan in 1971, but “da,” as locals call it, has a much longer history in this small South Asian Buddhist country. The Bhutanese people employed bows and arrows out of necessity against invading Tibetans and British in the 19th century. Archery later evolved into a social game played by everyone from kings to villagers, and eventually became a national pastime.

A small town in upstate New York may seem like an unexpected place to find the hall of fame for America’s national sport, but Cooperstown became associated with baseball thanks to a Civil War hero named Abner Doubleday, who claimed to have invented the game there in 1839. That account has since been refuted, but Cooperstown's baseball identity nonetheless stuck, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame was established in 1939.

If you can’t decide on one national sport, why not pick two? That’s exactly what Canada did after a decades-long disagreement between proponents of two very different games: ice hockey and lacrosse. In 1994, the National Sports of Canada Act declared ice hockey the national winter sport and lacrosse the national summer sport (though, of course, both can be played year round).