Tip: See my list of the Most Common Mistakes in English. It will teach you how to avoid mis­takes with com­mas, pre­pos­i­tions, ir­reg­u­lar verbs, and much more.

The number of patent applications is a good indicator of how innovative businesses in different regions are. Without further ado, let’s take a look at a map showing the number of patent applications to the European Patent Office (EPO) per 1 million inhabitants (averaged over the years 2008–2012, which are the most recent entries available in the Eurostat database as of 2017):

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5 top-scoring regions were as follows:

# Region Patent applications per year

1 million inhabitants 1 Vorarlberg, Austria 612 2 Northwestern Switzerland 607 3 North Brabant, Netherlands 592 4 Stuttgart, Germany 574 5 Mittelfranken, Germany 541

One note on methodology is in order here: The figures may fluctuate by up to ±50% from year to year in some regions, which is why I decided to take the average of the 5 most recent entries available (2008–2012). There are a few regions where the data for some years between 2008 and 2012 are missing, in which case the average is calculated from a smaller sample.