Culture
Hofstede, in 1980, developed an interesting theory about Culture - he gave Culture 5 dimensions along which it varied. (you could say 5 coordinates of Culture)
You can find explanations about those dimensions at many places on the net if you search in google, for example, two good ones are:
http://www2.andrews.edu/~tidwell/bsad560/Hofstede.html
http://www.sba.muohio.edu/oakenfg/homepage/Fall%202001/MKT%20471/Cultural%20Anlaysis/dimensions.htm
(read both)
He also measured a lot of countries' cultures along those dimensions. The measurement results are here:
USA is found to be the most individualistic country in the world.
If you read the above links, you will find that there are some interesting correlations between the dimensions and other cultural things like teacher-student relationship, presence of rituals, economic development, warm/cold region, etc.
--------