Give four kisses in Nantes and why you should NEVER fold your arms in Finland: An etiquette guide to greetings around the world

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Meeting people for the first time can be a social minefield fraught with misunderstandings if you don't have the correct grip on local etiquette.

While many may be familiar with shaking hands, hugging or kissing people on first meeting, greeting methods vary even further.

For example, in Japan, people may bow to each other as a sign of respect while in Tibet, the locals are more likely to stick their tongue out at you.

Greetings can be very different around the world and as this infographic reveals, it's not always a hand shake or kisses on the cheek

In both Thailand and India, you'll be met with two palms together as a sign of respect, while in the Philippines, you're more likely to receive a salute according to a new infographic from Madame Vacances.

Shaking hands is another common greeting around the world but how you do it also varies from country to country.

According to the infographic, you should offer a firm hand shake as a sign of power and formality in the USA but you don't need to be as firm in England.

In Turkey, offering both hands during the greeting, with your fingers horizontal or pointing down, is common; while in Botswana, you should hold both hands up in a clasp with your fingers pointing up.

For continental Europe, kisses on the cheeks are part of the usual greeting.

In France, where kissing on the cheeks is the norm in greetings, there are different regional rules on how many pecks to give

It's seen in Belgium, Spain and Italy but in France, there are all sorts of different etiquettes according to the part of the country where you're in.

In Tolouse and Bordeaux, the standard number of kisses is two while for Lille it's up to three. And although the standard number of pecks is two in Paris, it could go up to three.

Marseilles and Montpellier in the south of the country will offer three kisses as part of the greeting and for Nantes in the west, it's a total of four.

Getting your body language wrong can also cause you to fall foul of local customs.

Touching the bottom of your chin with the backs of your fingers is considered extremely rude in Italy, Belgium and France.

In Greece, Spain and Brazil, joining your thumb and index finger together to form a circle, while simultaneously raising your remaining three fingers, symbolises a body part - even though it might mean okay elsewhere in the world.

And in Finland, simply folding your arms is considered arrogant. 

While certain gestures might seem harmless in other countries, they could be extremely rude in some, like the destinations feature above