We already know how to get a single column's value for the top country, as presented in the aforementioned post:
This part is easy: just throw in the rest of the columns (again, only indicating the top country in each continent)
It's time to use string walking. Examples for string walking (described in the excellent SQL Cookbook) can be found here, here and here. We'll be using a numbers table: a simple table which lists ascending integer numbers. For example, you can use the following:
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `tinyint_asc`;
CREATE TABLE `tinyint_asc` (
`value` tinyint(3) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
PRIMARY KEY (value)
) ;
INSERT INTO `tinyint_asc` VALUES (0),(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(9),(10),(11),(12),(13),(14),(15),(16),(17),(18),(19),(20),(21),(22),(23),(24),(25),(26),(27),(28),(29),(30),(31),(32),(33),(34),(35),(36),(37),(38),(39),(40),(41),(42),(43),(44),(45),(46),(47),(48),(49),(50),(51),(52),(53),(54),(55),(56),(57),(58),(59),(60),(61),(62),(63),(64),(65),(66),(67),(68),(69),(70),(71),(72),(73),(74),(75),(76),(77),(78),(79),(80),(81),(82),(83),(84),(85),(86),(87),(88),(89),(90),(91),(92),(93),(94),(95),(96),(97),(98),(99),(100),(101),(102),(103),(104),(105),(106),(107),(108),(109),(110),(111),(112),(113),(114),(115),(116),(117),(118),(119),(120),(121),(122),(123),(124),(125),(126),(127),(128),(129),(130),(131),(132),(133),(134),(135),(136),(137),(138),(139),(140),(141),(142),(143),(144),(145),(146),(147),(148),(149),(150),(151),(152),(153),(154),(155),(156),(157),(158),(159),(160),(161),(162),(163),(164),(165),(166),(167),(168),(169),(170),(171),(172),(173),(174),(175),(176),(177),(178),(179),(180),(181),(182),(183),(184),(185),(186),(187),(188),(189),(190),(191),(192),(193),(194),(195),(196),(197),(198),(199),(200),(201),(202),(203),(204),(205),(206),(207),(208),(209),(210),(211),(212),(213),(214),(215),(216),(217),(218),(219),(220),(221),(222),(223),(224),(225),(226),(227),(228),(229),(230),(231),(232),(233),(234),(235),(236),(237),(238),(239),(240),(241),(242),(243),(244),(245),(246),(247),(248),(249),(250),(251),(252),(253),(254),(255);
The trick is to apply the same technique as used above, not for a single row, but for several rows. Here's how to present the top 5 countries: