Map created by Szymon Pifczyk, Marcin Gębala, Aleksander Deryło, & Bartosz Chyż via BIQData.pl

The map above shows European cities, towns and villages that have the term “saint” or “holy” in their names. The data comes from the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

Overall, France is the clear winner with 8,963 “holy” places followed by Spain with 4,444 and Italy with 2,638. At the other extreme you have Sweden and Norway with just 2 “holy” places each.

Interestingly, the UK actually beats out Ireland in terms of places named after a “Saint” or including the word “holy”, with 327 compared to just 34 in Ireland.

You can read the full article and learn more about the data and methodology here.

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