Canada Leads World In Searching For "Marijuana" On Google
Thursday October 18, 2007
CityNews.ca Staff
There are a lot of things you can learn about a country over the Internet. You can visit their tourist websites, check out what travellers say about them, even take a virtual tour of some of their cities. Or you can look at what they search for using the world's number one online engine.
Google has released a country-by-country breakdown of the most searched for terms on the planet. And you'll never guess what's number one in Canada. While many places, list "sex" as the top keyword - including Egypt, India and Turkey - searchers in your home and native land place first on the list for those looking up "marijuana". The U.S. and Australia come in second and third.
And for some reason, Canada is also the leading nation on the planet to look for "Tom Cruise", once again ahead of the Americans and those Down Under. We're in third place when it comes to hunting down information on Britney Spears, beaten by both Mexico and Venezuela. And we get the bronze for other topics, like "Taliban", "car bomb" and - for reasons that may never be clear - "burrito".
It's hard to say how to interpret all of this. But if what the online community searches for is any indication, you might well conclude Canadians like to get stoned, watch "Top Gun" and eat a Mexican snack at the same time.
What does the data show about the rest of the world? It appears to reinforce a lot of stereotypes, and should be taken with a grain of salt. But for what it's worth, "Iraq" is the number one word entered by Americans. In Pakistan, it's both "Taliban" and "Terrorism". Italians looked most often for "Viagra." In Germany, "Hitler" is the most requested search term, while Chile scored highest with both "Nazi" and "Gay." And the number one word entered into Google in Ireland is "Hangover."
Here's the list, assembled by Google from 2004 to the present, listed from first to third.
"Jihad" - Morocco, Indonesia, Pakistan
"Terrorism" - Pakistan, Philippines, Australia
"Hangover" - Ireland, United Kingdom, United States
"Burrito" - United States, Argentina, Canada
"Iraq" - United States, Australia, Canada
"Taliban" - Pakistan, Australia, Canada
"Tom Cruise" - Canada, United States, Australia
"Britney Spears" - Mexico, Venezuela, Canada
"Homosexual" - Philippines, Chile, Venezuela
"Love" - Philippines, Australia, United States
"Botox" - Australia, United States, United Kingdom
"Viagra" - Italy, United Kingdom, Germany
"David Beckham" - Venezuela, United Kingdom, Mexico
"Kate Moss" - Ireland, United Kingdom, Sweden
"Dolly Buster" - Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia
"Car bomb" - Australia, United States, Canada
"Marijuana" - Canada, United States, Australia
"IAEA" - Austria, Pakistan, Iran
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