Shropshire Star

This Google autocomplete map of Europe is fascinatingly revealing

The map shows the questions people want answered about European countries.

Published
(Jakub Marian)

Jakub Marian is a Czech cartographer, whose maps give a fascinating and different take on the world from above.

His latest creation depicts Europe, but instead of names countries are given the autocomplete of a question about the country.

The question is “Why did (country name) … ?” and the answers, taken from Google in the US, give a revealing incite into both the Americans using the search engine and the European countries themselves.

The  autocomplete map of Europe
(Jakub Marian)

Others are intriguingly specific however, such as Sweden’s “ban Christmas lights”, referring to a fake report that the country banned them to avoid offending Muslims – the truth was reportedly a ban on lights being put on poles for safety reasons.

Norway’s “knight a penguin” refers to the similarly bizarre story of Nils Olav I, II and II, three penguins adopted and honoured by the Norwegian military – the second of whom was knighted in 2008 and is pictured below with his King’s Guard over which he was colonel-in-chief.

Nils Olav the penguin in 2008
(David Cheskin/PA)

Others of note about Europe include one for Valentine’s Day which showed all the different ways to say “I love you” in different nations.

The map showing how to say I love you
(Jakub Marian)
Europe with the data from the OECD
(Jakub Marian)
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