When Coca-Cola first came to China in 1927, it was a big hit. But in 1949, when communist leader Mao Zedong took over, Coke, along with other imported goods from the West, was banned.
It didn't return until 1979, and by then many Chinese people had never tried it. In time, the drink caught on, and today China is Coca-Cola's third-largest market, after the US and Mexico.
Coca-Cola began selling in South Korea in 1970 under the Doosan Beverage company, part of the larger Doosan conglomerate.
Once a US trade embargo lifted in 1994, Vietnamese citizens saw the return of the soda brand within the year, around three decades after it had been pulled from the market due to the Vietnam War.
The first Thai Coca-Cola plant opened in Bangkok in 1949.
Coca-Cola has been on Indonesian shelves since 1932, but it didn't open its first bottling plant there until the early 1990s.
In 1979, Coca-Cola arrived in what was then the Soviet Union, in advance of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The first bottling plant opened soon after the fall of the USSR in 1994.
Despite being within the Soviet bloc, Poland got its first taste of Coke long before the Russians, in 1957. It gained popularity throughout the '60s, until its first plant was opened in 1972.
Greece got its first shipment of Coke in 1969, exactly half a century ago.
Germany got its first taste of Coke in 1929, where it soon proved very popular.
However, during World War II, Coca-Cola was unable to ship its proprietary syrup to Nazi Germany, so German Coca-Cola employees came up with Fanta, which was made from leftover fruit peels. Its famous citrus flavor wasn't added until the 1950s.
While Germany was split into West and East in the aftermath of the war, East Germans could only smuggle in the soft drink, until it was officially for sale a year after Germany's reunification.
Coca-Cola opened its first bottling plant in Portugal in 1958.
Argentina had its first Coca-Cola bottling plant in 1942.
Coca-Cola has a bottling plant in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, along with other plants in nearby Jericho and Tulkarem. In 2016, it opened a plant in Gaza, which employs 270 people. It's been in the region since 1998.
Coke asked to open shop in Israel in 1949, but for reasons that remain unknown, the new government blocked its entrance. By the 1960s, Americans who sympathized with Israel thought it was strange that Coke was sold throughout the Middle East but not Israel. After some lobbying (and a change of heart by the Israeli government), the soft drink was introduced there in 1966.
Coke first came to the United Arab Emirates in 1988.
In 2006, Coca-Cola invested $25 million in its first bottling plant in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Coca-Cola first came to Egypt in 1946.
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