United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, (Great) Britain in the US

I investigated a little bit further along the lines of my "United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian" posts 1 and 2. This time, I faced off the same five European countries but only among US Googlers:



France was no. 1, followed by Italy. It was however odd that the UK with whom Americans share a common language and are culturally and politically closely linked, came in dead last. As mentioned before, France's recurring summer peak was due to the Tour de France. Let's have a look at the state rankings for interest in the five countries, beginning with the UK:



Among this smaller volume of searches, DC, New York and Illinois stood out. Mississippi came last. How about France?



The top 3 consisted of DC, New York and California. South Dakota came in dead last. Just like with the UK, the political and trade ties probably pushed DC to the top. Louisiana, which you would expect to be interested in France, didn't make the top 10. Next, Germany:



Michigan led for this country, followed by Wisconsin and DC. Could this have something to do with a larger share of German-Americans in the first two states? Louisiana thought the least about Germany. Then came Spain:



New York led, New Jersey was a close second and third was Florida. The pattern seemed to correlate with the distribution of Hispanics in the US. Oklahoma ended up last. Finally, Italy:



For Italy, it was New York, Connecticut and then New Jersey. South Dakota didn't care much for the Mediterranean "boot." I was still puzzled about the low score for the UK though: maybe "the United Kingdom" was a tad too bureaucratic a term, not what people type into the Google search box? I tested this theory by comparing the constituent parts of the UK:



England blew the competition as well as the UK out of the water: more than 13 times higher Google-popularity than the UK. Northern Ireland barely registered. A caveat however was apparent when looking at the state rankings: the New England states made up the top 6, in other words, a lot of the hits may be for the New England region rather than England.


One more test: I faced off Britain, Great Britain (also often used terms) and the UK:



Britain was tops, Great Britain was last. The term Great Britain—from which the automobile country code "GB" is derived—covers England, Wales and Scotland. The full name of the UK is actually the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Why is Britain "great"? Originally, "greater" distinguished it from "lesser" Britain, i.e., Brittany in France. Remember William the Conqueror and the French connections? Later, it was used to cement the union of England and Scotland. Britain in its proper use is then the geographical entity of the island containing Scotland, Wales and England. Of course, common usage conflates all this ;-)

United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian (Part 2)

In part 1, I faced off the search volumes of five versions of the names of the five big European countries. Today, I compared each time four European countries plus the US as far as the Google-popularity of a fifth European country was concerned. I started with the UK:



The UK was most popular in Spain, twice as much as in the US and Italy. France and Germany closed the rankings. My guess would be that this was caused by the larger contingent of British tourists in Spain. Note that I put the US in place of the search-term country. After all, a country name being most popular in its own territory didn't need proving but a comparison with the search patterns in the US could provide a nice study in contrast. Next, France:



France was most popular by far in the UK—a sentiment that was not returned as we saw above... Americans were the least interested in France. All searchers though were most interested in the summer: Tour de France time! Just like with the UK, popularity is generally in decline. Then came Germany:



All Europeans were about as much interested in this country, the US lagged a bit behind. Italy narrowly won this one. The 2006 World Cup soccer was again clearly visible, esp. in soccer-crazy Spain and Italy. So, how about Spain?



The interest in this country was staggered perfectly, from the top score in the UK (returning the favor; see above under the UK) to the least interested Italians. Americans came out one step above Italy. I wonder whether the UK trend line showed their vacation season, beginning at Christmas and lasting through the summer. The French and to a lesser extent the Germans also vacation in Spain but mostly in the summer only. Strangely, Americans were less into Spain during the summer... Finally, Italy:



One more time, the Europeans more or less agreed while the US lagged behind some. The summer 2006 peak was caused by the Azurri (Italian national soccer team) winning the World Cup in Germany.

United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian (Part 1)

Today I faced off the five most populous countries of the European Union but not against each other. Instead, I investigated the Google-popularity of their names in the five main languages. Note that I kept the order of the languages the same for each country: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian. Let's start with the United Kingdom:



As expected, the English version of the name was by far the most common but was also diminishing in volume at a rapid and sustained pace. Spanish came in second; Italian, French and German barely registered in comparison—remember that the numbers on these Google Insights for Search graphs are relative, not absolute, i.e., not reflecting real volume numbers but only how the different search terms differ in search volume. Next, France:



We had two complications here: the English and French versions of the name were identical and so were the Spanish and Italian ones. In both cases, I kept the two languages on the graph even though only one of the trend lines was visible, that line being the sum total of the two languages' search volume. That way, the language color codes didn't change from graph to graph. Anyway, France was king and it didn't matter whether the French or the English version was what drove this line because the other three languages were so small in volume that they would have been behind even if it were possible to split up the English and French searches. The Tour de France cycling extravaganza produced the annual summer peak (see also my August 9, 2008 post). How about Germany?



This time, I had solid evidence for the native tongue normally being on top: Deutschland bested Germany. Both were decreasing through time. The one time English won out was in June 2006 when even Italian almost caught up with German. The reason: the World Cup soccer took place in Germany that year, mostly in June. The smaller uptick later on was Euro 2008, the European soccer championship. Do we need anymore proof that soccer is king in Germany? :-) This in contrast to France where cycling is king (see above). Next, Spain:



The pattern continued: the native language bested English and both declined through time. Italians had little affinity with Spain. Finally, I analyzed Italy:



One more time we had an "identical twin": Italia is both the Italian and the Spanish name for the country. Of course then, Italian + Spanish bested English. Just like with Spain, there was at least some search volume from the other languages too: I wonder if this might be due to both countries being favorite tourist destinations?

Update: Don't forget to read part 2.

Food & Drink Searches in the US, Canada, Germany, Russia, Italy, France, Brazil, Japan and India

Today I looked at Google searches about food and drink collectively by a series of countries. What is more, I used the option to show trend lines for each year which should bring out seasonalities. I started with the US:



The two high points of the year were Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday of November) and Christmas. Next, Canada:



In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on a different date: the second Monday of October. This was reflected in the trend lines. Surely, Christmas will also be the gastronomical top in Germany?



Indeed. Note the more gradual buildup toward Weihnachten though. Also, Easter was becoming more pronounced here. That holiday follows a complicated set of rules involving a lunisolar calendar and fell in the Western rite of Christianity on different dates: April 11, 2004; March 27, 2005; April 16, 2006; April 8, 2007; March 23, 2008. Let's go to a prime representative of the Eastern rite of Christianity: Russia.



Primarily because the Eastern rite doesn't follow the Gregorian calendar but instead still uses the Julian one, their Christmases do not always coincide with the Western ones: April 11, 2004; May 1, 2005; April 23, 2006; April 8, 2007; April 27, 2008. We did see a small increase at that time in 2004, 2007 and 2008 but not in the other years. It seemed like Easter wasn't as big a deal as in the Western rite. Christmas trumped everything. Next, Italy:



This displayed a more "multipolar" seasonality: Christmas and Easter, sure, but also mid-February and more. I guess it goes to show that Italians like to celebrate on many occasions—good for them! How about the other stereotypical bon vivants, France?



Besides Christmas, a peak in mid-August also showed. But more interesting was that the search volume went up dramatically in March 2008 as compared with the previous years. Odd. Off to South America I went to investigate Brazil.



Easter was almost as important as Christmas for Brazilians. I wondered what the mid-June increase stood for. It turns out that June 12 is the Dia dos Namorados, a kind of Valentine's Day. Note the more or less increasing search volume through the years. How about Japan?



Even though this country isn't really much Christian, Yuletide was most noticeable in the seasonal trends. It has become kind of a secular, imported holiday. Second most important was early June which I wasn't able to link to any specific holiday or festivity. Does anybody have an idea? Finally, I did an analysis of India:



I couldn't observe any noticeable seasonal peaks in Google searches for food and drink. However, there was a remarkable peak in September 2007. Maybe this had to do with India winning the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 championship? I really don't know. Maybe somebody can help on this one too.

One more thing: I did a quick tally of the top 3 search terms in the analyzed countries, totaling all the occurrences:



Obviously, most people search the internet for recipes or for restaurants. Sushi occurred in the top 3 only in Russia (not Japan!), wine in Germany (not France!). Ramen though was only popular in Japan.

2009 NEA Jazz Masters

Last Friday, the US National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) celebrated its 2009 Jazz Masters: George Benson, Toots Thielemans, Lee Konitz, Jimmy Cobb, Snooky Young and Rudy Van Gelder. The latter is actually a recording engineer so that left me with five musicians to face off:



Benson totally outranked the other four but this was because he is also or even more so a mainstay of pop/rock music. Thielemans was second, closely followed by Konitz. Cobb and Young barely registered among the Googling crowd. I tried to enhance the discriminating power by leaving out Benson:



This graph basically confirmed the first one. The trend lines didn't cross. So I went back to my first analysis and looked at the regional interest information, first for Benson:



Surprisingly, he scored the highest by far in Georgia (the country, not the US state!), followed by Indonesia and South Africa. I am at a loss how to explain this. Maybe a Benson fan can enlighten me? The US wasn't even in the top 10! Next, Thielemans:



Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor "Toots" Thielemans is my personal favorite—I'm Belgian after all ;-) —and naturally got the highest Google-popularity in Belgium, his native country where he even received the title of baron in 2001, a rare honor for an artist. I include a great picture of him playing his harmonica. He expanded its range and versatility as nobody else before him. In that he reminds me of another jazz late great of Belgian extraction, Django Reinhardt, who also played an instrument not normally associated with jazz at that time, viz. the guitar. Thielemans' second country was The Netherlands, then came Hungary. Again, the US didn't get in the top 10. Let's see what I found for Konitz:






Konitz was the second American to be more Google-popular abroad than in the US, this time Italy took the honors. The US did come in eighth. Then I checked on Cobb:



There was very little data for this musician but for what it's worth this was the top 3: the US, South Africa, Vietnam. Finally, how about Young?



He had the same paucity of data as well as the same top 3.

Weekdays in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and The Netherlands

Today I faced off the five weekdays in five European countries. Let's start with the UK:



Friday was on top, with an annual peak around Good Friday (typically in March or April). The less-represented Tuesday nevertheless also displayed an annual peak around Fat Friday (Mardi Gras) in February. Monday had a lone but impressive peak in May 2006: I have no clue why. Googlers in the UK were least interested in Thursday. Next, Germany, using the local names (as in all countries; but always in chronological order on the graph, to make comparisons easier).



The ranking in popularity of the weekdays is similar to the UK. No. 1, Freitag, showed a more even trend line though, no real peak for Good Friday. Mittwoch, however, had many serious peaks without a clear annual pattern emerging. Dienstag was dead last. The French days of the week faced off as follows:



They were pretty much all on the same base level though lundi especially had quite a few strong peaks, usually about in May. I suppose the May 2005 one could be related to referendum on the proposed new European constitution (Monday May 30). Mercredi was the overall loser. Now I went down southeast for the Italian stage of our little "Tour of Europe":



I included the unaccented variants of the days in the comparison as Google distinguishes them to a certain extent. The weekdays were more or less bundled together except for uneven trend lines for venerdì, martedì and lunedì especially. The reasons escape me. At the bottom we found mercoledì again. Then it was on to Spain:



This country had a profile unlike any of the others: all days were on similar flat, low levels of interest except for a humongous peak for jueves in July 2007. Again, I am at a loss to explain this anomaly. The least interesting day in Spain seemed to be miércoles but not by a meaningful margin. Finally, we looked into The Netherlands:



Vrijdag won this one. I venture that this is related to Good Friday again: look at the annual peaks. There was even a corollary annual donderdag small peak: Maundy Thursday (Witte Donderdag) perhaps? In Holland, dinsdag was the least interesting.