Heavy Metal Map of Europe

Internets, I know you've been on tenterhooks wanting to know just what the distribution of heavy metal bands in Europe actually is. Well, concern yoursevles no more, because I, for some reason, have taken upwards of 20 minutes out of my day to make this map.



It's based on the metal band listings at metalmap.org, which a commenter pointed to in the previous thread. Scandinavia, as you can see, is more than well-represented. I am unsurprised by this, but also unsure why I am unsurprised. Here, in no rational order, are the number of heavy metal bands listed at that site for the coutries of Europe:

Iceland - 19
Ireland - 26
UK - 64
Norway - 311
Sweden - 517
Finland - 99
Estonia - 103
Latvia - 18
Lithuania - 46
Poland - 265
Russia - 82
Belarus - 46
Ukraine - 28
Moldova - 3
Romania - 176
Bulgaria - 36
Greece - 23
Macedonia - 1
Albania - 4
Serbia - 32
Montenegro - 0
Bosnia - 16
Croatia - 28
Slovenia - 21
Hungary - 74
Slovakia - 79
Czech Republic - 240
Austria - 99
Switzerland - 111
Germany - 298
Italy - 279
Denmark - 40
Netherlands - 258
Belgium - 149
Luxembourg - 11
France - 195
Spain - 157
Portugal - 86
Malta - 3

The site further breaks down metal bands into black metal, black/death, crust, crust/grind, death, death/black metal, death/doom, death/grind, doom metal, experimental, gore/grind, grindcore, grind/noise, hc/grind, industrial, jazz/grind, melodic black metal, melodic death metal, noise, noise/grind, sympho black metal, sympho doom metal, and thrash/death subcategories.

If, like me, you obviously have too much time on your hands, you can spend a couple minutes reading through the names of the bands. It's an odd sort of meditation, like walking through a Hieronymus Bosch painting.



If you're into that sort of thing.