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.
