Does England have snakes? What people Google before moving to London and the UK

If you’ve ever wondered what people overseas think about the UK, wonder no more. We’ve crunched the data and can reveal PRECISELY what people from all over the world want to know before they move to or visit the UK.

A team of researchers based in 13 countries collated the local Google autocomplete suggestions for search terms relating to Great Britain, the United Kingdom and the popular tourist and residential locations over here.

The results are fascinating, hilarious and at times, a little worrying.

For example, why are people in Poland so concerned with the safety of our largest cities?

And why do South Africans need to know whether the UK has a death penalty?

Many of the queries were related to the standard of living over here. The weather, the shops and of course, weather the Lake District has wifi are all legitimate concerns for a savvy traveller looking to visit or relocate to the UK.

Here are our favourites. Head to the bottom of the page for the full results.

 

 

Moving to London from New Zealand

Here’s what Americans want to know about Bath.

Germans don’t know what Yorkshire is…

The most searched query about Birmingham from people in the UK…
Optimistic Kiwis want to know if they can get into Cambridge. We’ve all wondered about this one, actually.

South Africa’s top questions about Edinburgh

Yes, it has pandas and a Primark. In fact, Scotland used to have more pandas than Conservative MPs, thanks to Edinburgh Zoo.

Yes Spain, Glasgow is safe.
Kiwis on the Lake District…

Yes, Kiwis. It has wifi. It also has stunning scenery, great food and no snakes.

That’s the spirit, Poland.

 

And here’s a map of the British Isles, according to Google searches performed overseas.

 

 

 

Top queries – English speaking queries

 

Query		Canadian Google	Australian Google	New Zealand Google	American Google	British Google	Irish Google	South African Google
Does…	Great Britain	include Ireland	have a president	use miles	rule Canada	include Ireland	include northern Ireland	have the death penalty
Does…	United Kingdom	have states	have states	have a written constitution	have universal healthcare	have a constitution		have a federal government
Does…	England	have provinces	have snakes	have snakes	use the euro	have a constitution	want northern Ireland	have a 4th of july
Does…	Wales	have a prime minister	compete in the olympics	have its own language	have a king	have its own parliament	have an olympic team	have a football league
Does…	Northern Ireland	use pounds	compete in the olympics	want to leave the uk	want to leave the uk	have an olympic team	accept euros	have an olympic team
Does…	Scotland	have provinces	have bears	have an olympic team	belong to England	have a veto on Brexit?	use the euro	use the euro
Does…	London	have a Walmart	have uber	get snow	have uber	have hard water		have uber
Does…	Manchester	have an international airport	united have snapchat	airport close at night	united play tomorrow	airport have wifi		airport close at night
Does…	Liverpool	play today	play today	have an airport	have an airport	have a christmas market		qualify for europa league
Does…	Glasgow	snow	have uber	airport have a train station	have uber	have a flag		have uber
Does…	Edinburgh	zoo have pandas	have a beach	have an airport	have a subway	have uber		zoo have pandas
Does…	Cardiff	have a beach	have a beach	have uber	have a beach	have a beach		have a beach
Does…	Yorkshire	terrier shed	tea contain pesticides	pudding have gluten	pudding have gluten	bank open on a saturday		tea come from yorkshire
Does…	The Cotswolds	what does the Cotswolds mean	what does the Cotswolds mean	what does the Cotswolds mean	what area does the Cotswolds cover	where do the Cotswolds start		what countries does the cotswolds cover
Does…	Bath	and bodyworks sell in china	have a Primark		and body lotion expire	have a cathedral		have a park and ride
Does…	the Lake District	have mountains	have wifi	have wifi	have a beach	have a beach		have wifi
Does…	Birmingham	zoo have wifi	have uber	have uber	have a zoo	airport have a smoking area		have a port
Does…	Oxford	have a medical school	have uber	care about GCSEs	accept transfer students	accept btec		have a business school
Does…	Cambridge	accept transfer students	accept btec	accept btec	accept transfer students	accept btec		have a christmas market
Does…	York	university have a gym	have a beach	have free wifi	college have a nursing program	have uber		have free wifi
Does…	Newcastle	have a beach	get 7flix	have a beach	have a beach	have a beach		university have a reading read

 

Top queries – Non-English speaking countries

We’ve left blanks where there was no autocomplete suggestion.

 

		Spanish Google	French Google	German Google	Polish Google	Dutch Google	Belgian Google
Does…	Great Britain				mean the same as England	have an immigration surplus	belong to the Schengen region
Does…	United Kingdom				belong to the Schengen region	use the euro	have multiple countries
Does…	England	is England easy to travel to	is England part of Europe	have summer time	get flooded	have summer and winter	have a constitution
Does…	Wales	is wales a country	is wales a country	have its own language	belong to the UK	have its own government	have its own government
Does…	Northern Ireland	is NI a country	does northern Ireland have snakes	have the euro	have safety concerns	have a lot of people	have postcodes
Does…	Scotland	is Scotland independent	does Scotland have mosquitos	drive on the left	have its on country	have a king	have a parliament
Does…	London	is London dangerous for tourists	does London have a Sephora		have safety concerns	have a port	have a port
Does…	Manchester	is manchester a safe city	does manchester have things to do		united have a chance in the champions league	City plan on bidding on Messi	united have debt
Does…	Liverpool	is Liverpool a safe city	does Liverpool have things to do		have safety concerns	how much did Lverpool pay for Suarez	have multiple airports
Does…	Glasgow	is Glasgow safe			have safety concerns	have multiple airports	have multiple airports
Does…	Edinburgh		does Edinburgh have museums		have a Primark	have a lot of people	have a lot of people
Does…	Cardiff			have a lot of people	have safety concerns	have a lot of people	have a lot of people
Does…	Yorkshire			what is Yorkshire	how do you make Yorkshire pudding
Does…	The Cotswolds			what is the Cotswolds
Does…	Bath			is bath expensive		have a lot of people	have a lot of people
Does…	the Lake District			have many lakes
Does…	Birmingham	is Birmingham safe		have an airport	have safety concerns	have a lot of people	have a lot of people
Does…	Oxford	is oxford university public or private	does oxford have things to do	have past papers	is oxford difficult to get into	have an airport	have more than one university
Does…	Cambridge	is Cambridge a city	does Cambridge have multiple universities	have past papers	is Cambridge difficult to get into	have a lot of people	have a lot of people
Does…	York			have an airport	have good weather
Does…	Newcastle				United travel to Poland	have a lot of people	have a lot of people

 

 

A note on methodology

We had researchers in each of the ‘searching’ countries, using their local version of Google. For non-English speaking countries, we used the local language to perform the search. In some cases, we had to modify the format of the question to replicate a realistic search. For example, the English translation of the German searches was ‘Has England…’ rather than ‘does England’.

We selected the counties from which the most visitors to the UK come, plus the largest English-speaking countries outside of Great Britain.

We conducted our analysis between October 19th and November 7th.

Each researcher used the same browser (Google Chrome) on a laptop or desktop computer.

Google autocomplete offers a suggestion based on the most popular search terms made in the user’s locality. These suggestions do change and can be influenced by device, but the suggestions Google makes are a very strong indicator of what other users have searched for.