Good vs. Evil: One Final Holiday Map

With the various rounds of travel and vacation at end of December break we ran out of time to post the entries for the second round of Satan/Santa maps. This is an issue that we now want to make right and since we received only one addition entry it makes choosing a winner very simple! But this does NOT mean that the map or the technique used to create it falls short of our stringent Floating Sheep standards. Indeed the map below submitted by Tom Koehler is a great example of the willingness to apply stringent GIS techniques to somewhat messy data [1] about an offbeat subject.

After combining a range of terms -- Satan, Satan Santa, Zombie, Bad Santa, Evil Santa, Devil and Lucifer -- Tom "created a surface raster of the results. I suppose there is some argument to be made over creating a contiguous surface from absolute data, but I figure the search hits aren't exactly absolute since they're searching a radius around that point." We suspect that the resulting map would look similar whether Tom used summed or absolute data but greatly appreciate the fact that he raised it as a possible issue/critique.


The resulting map of "more bad" clearly is shaped by major population centers; after all, population density is a key (albeit not the only) driver of geoweb material. Still some cities known for their "badness" such as Las Vegas, New Orleans and Miami come off relatively less bad than others, especially the Northeast. I guess Santa is looking forward to catching some time in the sun and warmth as well.

In any case, thanks to Tom for his map and he will be receiving his prizes in the mail soon.

[1] Is there any other kind of data?

Mapping Panettone (Italian Christmas cake)

Today we are happy to present a guest post and map from our friends in LADEST at Siena University (Cristina Capineri, Michela Teobaldi, Claudio Calvino, and Antonello Romano). And unlike our recent fascination with the forces of evil vs. Santa, it entirely focused on the simply joys of eating. Enjoy!

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Given the large number of delicious Christmas cakes and sweets to overindulge on, it is little wonder that Santa is a fat jolly man! Indeed, one may wonder why Santa ever decided to use chimneys given the troublesome girth that builds up.

In Italy the traditional, seasonal delight is Panettone, or Italian Christmas cake. Its origins are mysterious. One version has it that the cook of the Sforzas, an aristocratic Milanese family, supposedly burnt the cake he had made especially for Christmas dinner and instead served his lords with a simple cake made from dough and sultanas. Another story tells how some poor nuns from a monastery near Milan baked a cake with the few ingredients they could afford. Yet another is about a man who was in love with a nice baker whose business was doing rather badly and who created Panettone with lots of love in it! Whatever the true origin, Panettone has become the symbol of the Christmas family reunion in Italy.

But Panettone has also acquired an increasingly international following with many people search for recipes and/or ideas of how to use up leftover Panettone. In fact, according Google Insights (which tracks search patterns across space) there are more searches for Panettone than Christmas pudding. The following maps are based on data gathered from Google Insights for Search “Panettone” (2006- 2010) with results narrowed to food and drink category. Besides differences among regions, data showed a clear seasonality: peaks always take place in December.

Looking specifically at Italy, people from southern cities (Naples, Catania, Palermo, Taranto) look for Panettone, which is one of the traditional delicacies from the North, almost as if eating Panettone were a sort of glue holding the Italian national identity together.

Google Searchers for "Panettone", Italy

At the European level Panettone has spread to almost every country in western Europe, as well as Poland and Hungary, and has become an European food.

Google Searchers for "Panettone", Europe

The global scale shows a “nostalgic” pattern: the search is particularly common in countries where the Italian immigrant community is large, such as the US, Brazil, Canada, Venezuela and Argentina, as if people were searching for their culinary roots. It is worth noting that food culture is one of the areas that changes more slowly among immigrants, because food has a central role in many social rituals and communication patterns within families and communities.

Google Searchers for "Panettone", Worldwide

Enjoy Panettone and Happy Christmas from Ladest (Siena University, Italy)

Holiday Map Contest Winner: Santa vs. Satan

We are happy to announce that Duane Griffin of Bucknell University is the winner of the Floating Sheep "Mapping Santa" contest. His entry combined a flair for cartographic representation with a willingness to combine unconventional data (details here) to create what we think is a truly terrifying map. It is truly one of the creepiest things we’ve ever seen associated with the holidays (and that is saying something!).


So, put the kids to bed, block up the chimney and hide the retirees....someone is coming to town and they are pissed! Even Santa looks rather menacing in this map. So, congratulations to Duane for this mark of distinction dubious honor. We can only hope he has the good sense to keep it off his c.v.

Don't forget, we're running a second round of this contest with entries due on Friday! In particular, we'd love to see some maps of the United Kingdom.

Contest Rules and Data

1. The data is available in shapefile and excel versions. See the excel version for the metadata and other information about how the data was generated.
   
2. Email your entries to zook@uky.edu
3. Entries must be received by Friday December 23rd by 8 am EST. (Apologies for the tight deadline but we're getting this post up later than planned). We'd like to post all the entries to the blog by the 23rd or 24th.
   
4. By entering you agree to allow us to post your visualization on the FloatingSheep.org blog and under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
5. Winners will be decided by the FloatingSheep collective as advised by comments to the posts here.
6. Winners will receive a honest-to-God Floating Sheep ornament and a Slacker strata t-shirt. Both of which are also available for your purchase and pleasure.

If you have any questions... feel free to ask us in the comments section.

The Holidays are Upon Us: A Contest for Our Readers

This month marks the two year anniversary (more or less) of the Floating Sheep blog and we've made a tradition out of having some fun with mapping Santa. In 2009, we did a general mapping of Santa and Reindeer and last year we did the twelve posts of Santa where we looked at the geography of various local names for Santa Claus in Europe.

This year we're taking a look at the age old question of which is more popular, Santa or Zombies? OK, not really an age old question but we've been on a bit of a zombie kick as of late and thought it was a question worth asking. And just for the fun of it, we decided to add include some searches for the anti-Santa: Satan... which strangely enough is almost the same text string. Then because adding in religion is always fun we included a range of terms from Christianity and other religious traditions. After all, what are the holidays without the faux "annual war on christmas" controversy? Then, just because we thought of it, we added in the search term "Fat Man" to see what that might bring.

But the most innovative thing we're doing is passing along the data the data directly to you [1]. Including shapefile and excel versions. See the excel version for the metadata and other information.

We'd like to see what kind of visualizations readers can create. To add a little incentive, we're making it a contest with the winner receiving a honest-to-God Floating Sheep ornament and a Slacker strata t-shirt. Both of which are also available for your purchase and pleasure. They make excellent gifts, no matter which holiday you celebrate this time of year!

Contest Rules

1. Email your entries to zook@uky.edu
2. Entries must be received by Monday December 19th by 8 am EST. (Apologies for the tight deadline but we're getting this post up later than planned). We'd like to post all the entries to the blog by the 20th.
   
3. By entering you agree to allow us to post your visualization on the FloatingSheep.org blog and under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
4. Winners will be decided by the FloatingSheep collective as advised by comments to the posts here.

If you have any questions... feel free to ask us in the comments section.

[1] And no, we're not just passing along the data because were lazy. For the record, while we are undoubtedly lazy, we actually have mapped the data and will be posting the maps next week.

The Twelve Posts of Santa, Part XII: The Most Wonderful Santa Claus Of All

We've studied Santa Claus in English (twice, even!), French, Italian, Polish, German, Spanish, Dutch and a handful of other languages. We even mapped references to various accompanying figures who dole out the punishments so that Santa doesn't have to.

But which of these representations of Santa Claus is the most prevalent? According to our tallies, plain ole Santa Claus is still the most wonderful of them all, as one might expect. But when comparing references to the top 10 versions of Santa Claus, a spatial mosaic of Christmassy cheer is evident, with each version of Santa existing in a somewhat clearly defined region, but with plenty of overlap. Just because references to Santa Claus are the most prevalent doesn't mean he can't coexist with alter-egos Père Noël, Weihnactshmann and Sinterklaas. Indeed, they seem to be getting along just fine.
Whether one is a Christian or not, the prevalence of Christmas celebrations around the world - not to mention the rampant consumerism built up around it - has made Santa Claus a lovable figure no matter what one believes, or even where one lives. But as we've shown in the eleven posts leading up to this finale, people celebrate Christmas differently in different places (and why wouldn't they?). But so what? What does mapping references to Santa Claus in Google Maps have to do with anything?

Like all Floatingsheep maps, we're attempting to connect the daily, lived practices of people to digital representations of those practices. By seeing that Polish Christmas characters show up almost exclusively in Poland, and similarly for any other country, it's easy to see how, while imperfect, the digital representations yielded by Google Maps are very much reflective of the many people's offline realities.

No matter what you each may believe, a Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

p.s. see you in the new year!

The Twelve Posts of Santa, Part XI: The Underbelly of Christmas

In this post we've decided to explore the less joyful side of Christmas. We conducted searches for three characters -- Zwarte Piet, Le Père Fouettard and Krampus -- that have a habit of dishing out punishments to bad children over the holiday season.
Which of these three characters would you least like to have over for tea? Well it turns out that while both Zwarte Piet and Père Fouettard have a penchant for dishing out floggings to children (and for some reason abducting them to Spain in the case of Zwarte Piet), it is the not-too-photogenic Krampus that draws the line at scaring children with bells. It also is rumoured that Austrian fascists weren't too keen on the guy. In the spirit of the my enemy's enemy proverb, we decided to see how Krampus performed in online visibility compared to his child beating colleagues.
It turns out, not too badly. As would be expected, Zwarte Piet is most visible in the Netherlands and Père Fouettard is most visible in France. Belgium is evenly split between the two, so poorly-behaved, Flemish-speaking Belgian children can expect their whippings from Zwarte Piet and French speakers can expect beatings from Père Fouettard. Zwarte Piet also seems to make brief appearances in Berlin, Venice and London, but it is Krampus who really has the most geographic mobility, with sightings all over Europe.

We're not sure what they moral of this tale is, but if you see an ugly, horned monster-like creature speaking Austrian German wandering about your neighbourhood, try not to panic.

The Twelve Posts of Santa, Part X: The Balkanisation of the Eastern Santaspheres

Searches for Santa's equivalent in Eastern Europe displays none of the Christmassy diversity of the western half of the continent. Święty Mikołaj is largely found in Poland, Kalėdų Senelis in Lithuania, and their counterparts also largely stay confined to the borders of the states that imagined them into being.

In fact, the diversity between variations on Santa Claus seems to have more to do with the relative dense of each country's cyberscape. For example, it is likely that there are more references to the Estonian Jõuluvana (green dots) than the equivalent terms in neighboring countries simply because Estonia has much higher rates of Internet penetration.

There are however, some interesting exceptions to the balkanisation of these Eastern Santaspheres. Ded Moroz (Дед Мороз), in particular, seems to stray widely from his Russian base. He is far more visible in Ukraine (particularly the Eastern portion) than his close cousin Дід Мороз (Did Moroz). He also seems to stray into Moldova, Germany, the Netherlands, and even eastern France. Despite his broad geographic mobility, Mr. Moroz is totally absent from many countries containing sizable Russian minorities (e.g Russians in northeastern Estonia, and parts of Latvia).

Also worthy of mention is that Joulupukki, the Finnish Santa, appears in virtual santascapes across the continent. Is he fleeing the harsh Finnish winter? Avoiding yet another karelian pie? or simply picking up a diversity of presents for all the Finnish children who can't bear to see yet another moomin?

The Twelve Posts of Santa, Part VIII: La Navidad de España

As we've already covered in our series of posts up to this point, Christmas traditions are incredibly varied around the world. In fact, we haven't even gone past Europe and we've found a number of different ways that people celebrate the holidays. Spain is no exception, with a unique combination of religious iconography and regionally-specific characters.
Closest to the traditional notion of Santa Claus in Spain is Papá Noel (shown in red), and one can see that references to the portly bearded guy we all know and love are scattered across the country. We suspect that the scattering of references to Papá Noel in francophone Europe may actually be for Papa Noël, the French spelling.

More prevalent than Papá Noel, however, is the tradition of the Three Kings who bring gifts on the celebration of the Epiphany, just as Christian lore says the kings came to deliver gifts to the baby Jesus. In castellano, they are called the "Reyes Magos", and in Catalan, they are the "Reis Mags", a linguistic difference that can be seen in the widespread diffusion of references to Reyes Magos and the clustering of references to Reis Mags in Catalonia.

Another important Catalan figure is the Tió de Nadal. It's like a Christmas tree, but you feed it candy in the weeks leading up to Christmas and then it poops them out on command. Life of the holiday party, he is, that Tió de Nadal. His star seems to be fading a bit as there is but a single purple dot in Catalonia, where references to him predominate.

On the other side of the country, in the Basque region (including parts of Spain and France), the Olentzero is the quasi-mythical figure who brings presents to children on Christmas eve. Although many legends about the Olentzero abound, he is always a giant, and has come to coexist with the many other more universal Christmas traditions in the surrounding regions.

¡Feliz Navidad!

The Twelve Posts of Santa, Part VII: German Diversity

Now that we've covered variations on Santa Claus in English, French, Italian and Polish, it's time to turn our attention to German speaking Europe, where a number of versions of Santa abound.

Both St. Nikolaus and Sankt Nikolaus are variations on Saint Nicholas, who is celebrated on December 6th. References to these keywords in the southern portion of Germany make sense, as this region is predominantly Catholic and would have more saints -- of all colors, shapes and creeds (OK, maybe not creeds as they're mostly Catholic) -- and be more likely to celebrate Saint Nicholas' Day.
As a result of the Catholicism in the south, Weihnachtsmann, the guy who delivers presents on the 24th, is more prevalent in Northern Germany, which is mostly Protestant. Perhaps Weihnachten is less anthropomorphized in the south and more of a religious celebration. In the northern part of Germany, evangelic and and less tradition, the Weihnachtsmann bringing presents may play a more prominent role than the religious celebration. Also make sure to be careful with the spelling, as weih nackt mann has a completely different meaning.

Other Santa-like traditions in Germany include the Christkind (Christ child), who also brings presents at Christmas, and is limited to a few scattered sites within our search. Based on a reader's suggestion (thanks!) we included Samichlaus, which shows up as small but very clear cluster in Switzerland, and Kleeschen, which is a tradition in Luxembourg.

Because we were able to see linguistic differences so strongly in our Santa maps, particularly the forthcoming map for Spain, we thought it would be worthwhile to focus on the distribution of the main names for Santa in French, German and Italian. We're particularly interested in Switzerland given its linguistic diversity. We should note that we're not including some local Swiss variants such as Samichlaus in these maps. Still some interesting results.
There is fairly clear division between the French speaking cantons in Eastern Switzerland and the German speaking ones to the North and center. The Italian term of Babbo Natale doesn't seem to have made much headway into the country as of yet.

Of related interest is that increased prevalence of Christkind in Austria which contrasts with southern and northern Germany. Perhaps this serves as the counterweight to to the Austrian preoccupation with Krampus (see map 1). Given that Krampus is the evil one and not the one bringing gifts, this is a bit surprising. But then again, once you get a look at him it's easy to understand why Austrians might be fixated on him.

Krampus

The Twelve Posts of Santa, Part VI: Polish Puzzles

Gwiazdor and Święty Mikołaj were the two Polish terms for Santa Claus we searched and again it is very striking the extent to which they correspond with formal and linguistic borders. We must admit, however, that we are fairly uninformed when it come to Polish Christmas traditions, but our understanding (i.e., what we can decipher from a Google translation of the Polish wikipedia page) is that both characters deliver presents although Święty Mikołaj seems to be the more direct derivative of Santa.

This is probably a good time to note (again) that Santa Claus is a cultural artifact from Anglo (particularly American) practice and his diffusion has a lot to do with U.S. political and cultural power (and probably not that much to do with the Holy Roman Empire).

While many countries had similar figures, the timing of arrival (St. Nicholas' Day in early December or the Epiphany in January) varied as did the image, dress and role.
All of that being said, we have no good interpretation for the spatial distribution seen in the map above. The Wikipedia article does note that Gwiazdor is associated with the "areas of Wielkopolska and Kujawy (specifically, those parts which were under Prussian rule), Kashubian and Kociewie" which seems to correspond with out maps but we'll leave it to the readers to decide. Regardless, the extent to which Polish-language references are constricted to the formal boundaries, and what appears to be two equally legitimate claims on the proper name for a Santa Claus-like figure, remain especially interesting.

The Twelve Posts of Santa, Part V: Italy and the Coca Cola Santa

Our comparison for terms in Italian are "Babbo Natale" and "La Befana", which we are the first to admit are not directly comparable. La Befana is an old witch (seemingly relatively benign) who brings presents/coal to good/bad children on the eve of Epiphany (in January), which is when some traditions say the Wise men showed up. We thought that Babbo Natale is simply the Italian version of Santa.

We can't say that the map below shows much pattern between these two characters, but it does act as a nice depiction of the range of Italian in Europe: primarily spoken on the "boot" (and Sicily and Sardinia) but crossing national borders in the north.

What we were not expecting to find is that Babbo Natale is considered by many to be an invention of Coca Cola as a marketing device. Even more shocking is that some view Coca Cola as a non-authentic cultural actor rather than a bringer of light, goodness and carbonated beverages (OK, we're kidding about the last point). Still, it again highlights the complexity of the Christmas tradition in cultures other than one's own.

The historical equivalent of Santa Claus in the Italian tradition, according to our trusted local informant, is "Presepe" or "Gesù Bambino", the new born Jesus. In hindsight, it could have been very interesting to compare Gesù Bambino to Babbo Natale in order to see the differences between traditional Italian practices and corporate marketing. Sadly, we didn't have Gesù Bambino on our search list and we'll have to wait until next year.

The Twelve Posts of Santa, Part IV: En France, L'État, c'est Père Noël

After something of an Anglo-centric start to our series of twelve posts (see Part II and Part III), it's time to appease those Francophile Floatingsheep Fanatics. Focusing our attention on two separate, but not interchangeable, terms -- Père Noël and Père Fouettard -- we can start drawing some fairly clear conclusions about the way the French celebrate Christmas. Le Père Noël est très formidable. Even more interesting is how well the use of Père Noël illuminates the linguistic contours of French speakers, primarily France but also extending into parts of Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland.
For the most part, it is commonly accepted that the French simply use Père Noël as the local translation of Santa Claus (although technically it means Father Christmas). Indeed, the comparison shown in the map above shows Père Noël to be the dominant representation within the country, unlike the UK where there is fierce competition between Santa Claus and Father Christmas.

With Père Noël established as the legitimate bearded giver of gifts in France, why include Père Fouettard in our search?

Thanks to a helpful comment from a reader, we became aware that Père Fouettard is a locally-specific tradition in Lotharingen, France. And true enough, the cluster of four green dots signifying the prevalence of Père Fouettard in the northeast of France is the general location of Lotharingen.

But who is this le Père Fouettard anyways? Well, he's the one that accompanies St. Nicholas to punish (literally whip) all of those kids who don't deserve awesome presents. So, frankly, you don't want to get to know the guy. Kind of makes you feel sorry for all those folks in eastern France, doesn't it? But at least one can understand the preoccupation with keeping track of where "the whipping father" is.

And don't worry, we're tracking some other variations of St. Nicholas' posse, such as Krampus and Zwarte Piet. Unfortunately we seem to have missed Belsnickel.

The Twelve Posts of Santa, Part III: A new Holy Roman Emperor?

Now that we've explained the thinking behind this year's Search for Santa (in Part I) and mapped out references to two of the most popular names for that old bearded guy (in Part II), we thought we'd begin expanding our analysis to the plethora of terms we searched for. The second map in our series, presented here, continues to analyze English-language terms, this time including the names "Saint Nicholas", "Santy" and "Kris Kringle", but with a broader focus on the European continent rather than just the UK.
What we can see is that while Father Christmas seems to be focused on England, Santa Claus really gets around. His name has been inscribed on the virtual landscape all the way from Portugal to central Russia. Unlike other more ethnolinguistically specific terms for Santa, "Santa Claus" appears to be incredibly prevalent no matter where one might be.

But most interestingly, the area with the highest concentration of references to Santa closely corresponds to the old Holy Roman Empire. Coincidence? We think not. Consider the following hypothetical word morphology.

Charlemagne (800 C.E.)
|
Sharla Maens (1157 C.E.)
|
Shanta Claes (1613 C.E.)
|
Santa Claus (1800 C.E.)

Clearly there is a connection.

Note also that Santa Claus reigns supreme at world's most christmassy point: Kittilä, Finland.

While Santa Claus seems to be the primary term across most of Europe, it's also possible to notice the not insignificant number of points where references to "Saint Nicholas" predominate, perhaps indicating the greater cultural importance of Saint Nicholas' Day on December 6 in some regions. And though Santy is something of an Irish name for the old guy, references to "Santy" seem more prevalent at scattered points around France and Spain, while "Kris Kringle" is all but absent from the European Yule-tide cyberscape.

The Twelve Posts of Santa, Part II: Who are all these old men with bushy beards?

We've all heard about these old men wearing red outfits and sporting bushy white beards. But who are they really? Santa Claus or Father Christmas? We decided was about time to figure out who these dodgy characters are. Over the next eleven posts, we will be mapping references to the many names given to these old men (and women! and other creatures, too!) that we've collected, as documented in Part I of our series.

In this post we compare references to Santa Claus and Father Christmas in the British Isles. We see that Father Christmas is far more likely to be inscribed on the Christmassy landscape in England and Wales, while references to Santa Claus are more prevalent in Scotland and Ireland.
Father Christmas is traditionally associated with being the gift bearing bearded old man that visits children in the UK. So why do we see so many references to Santa Claus in Scotland and Ireland? Is this a cunning celtic plot to usurp the hegemonic British gift-giver (albeit replacing him with a central character in American culture)?

Based on our research, the Irish generally refer to this bearded old man with his nickname, "Santy". Our preliminary mapping failed to show a significant number of references to Santy, so perhaps the prevalence of the bearded man's full name in the cyberscape is indicative of the jolly guy's efforts to be taken more seriously amongst the Irish. Passing out gifts to billions of people in a matter of less than 24 hours is a lot of work, and Santa Claus doesn't appreciate his work being trivialized.

The Twelve Posts of Santa, Part I: The Search

Based on the names listed in our previous posting and the helpful reader comments (thanks!), we have completed our data gathering efforts for the 2nd Annual Search for Santa. This time, our search area is limited to Europe, broadly defined, and can be found in the white box outlined below.

Search Area for Santa Claus

Over the next week, we're going to start bringing you two posts a day mapping the results of this year's Search for Santa in a variety of different ways. For example, how does "Santa Claus" compare to "Father Christmas" in the U.K.? How do the various linguistic/cultural traditions map? Switzerland should be interesting. Are there differences between Catholic and Protestant parts of Germany?

The frequency tables for the data are below. Santa Claus still retains the lead, but Père Noël and Der Weihnachtsmann are close behind.

The Search for Santa, 2010

Building upon our discovery of Santa in Los Angeles last year we are embarking on a similar search this month. The goal this year is to compare the distribution of Christmas related characters within the greater European context (Iceland to Azerbaijan on the West-East axis; Norway to Morocco on the North-South axis). While this clearly captures historical European Christendom it also crosses over into territories in which Islamic, Jewish and other religious traditions dominate.

The goal is to map the cultural diffusion of Santa in general and the local variants. For example, the results for the Basque tradition of Olentzero is already producing some really interesting geographies. We hope it will also be a means by which to show linguistic differences as well, e.g., variations on Ded Moroz in Cyrillic languages.

Were conducting searches on the list of names below...mostly variations on Santa Claus but with a few other characters as well (e.g., Krampus and Zwarte Piet). We've no doubt missed some. We started with the wiki list although made some changes. Please take a look at the list below and make suggestions/corrections and we'll add them to the search.

Also, if anyone has other suggestions for similar types of searches on non-Western (particularly Chinese) cultural icons please let us know.

• Names in English (Kris Kringle)
• Names in English (Saint Nicholas)
• Names in English (Santa Claus)
• Names in English (Father Christmas)
• Albania (Babadimri )
• Albania (Babagjyshi i Krishtlindjeve )
• Arabic (بابا نويل)
• Aragon and Catalonia (Reis Mags )
• Aragon and Catalonia (Tió de Nadal)
• Aragon and Catalonia (Tronca de Navidad)
• Armenia (Ձմեռ Պապիկ )
• Azerbaijan (Şaxta baba)
• Basque (Olentzero)
• Bosnia and Herzegovina (Djeda Mraz )
• Bulgaria (Дядо Коледа )
• Croatia (Djed Božičnjak )
• Croatia (Djed Mraz )
• Czech Republic (Ježíšek )
• Czech Republic (Svatý Mikuláš )
• Denmark (Julemanden)
• Estonia (Jõuluvana)
• Estonia (päkapikk)
• Finland (Joulupukki)
• France (Père Noël)
• Georgia (თოვლის ბაბუა )
• Germany (Sankt Nikolaus)
• Germany (Weihnachtsmann )
• Germany, Austria, Switzerland & Liechtenstein (Christkind)
• Germany-Austria (Krampus)
• Greece_Cyprus (Άγιος Βασίλης )
• Hungary (Jézuska)
• Hungary (Kis Jézus )
• Hungary (Télapó )
• Iceland (jólasveinarnir )
• Iceland (Jólasveinn )
• Ireland (Daidí na Nollaig)
• Ireland (Santa Claus)
• Ireland (Santy)
• Italy (La Befana )
• Italy & Switzerland (Babbo Natale)
• Latvia (Ziemassvētku vecītis )
• Lebanon (Papa Noel)
• Lithuania (Kalėdų Senelis )
• Lithuania (Senis Šaltis )
• Luxembourg (Hoseker)
• Luxembourg (Kleeschen)
• Macedonia (Дедо Мраз )
• Netherlands & Flanders (Kerstman )
• Netherlands & Flanders (Sint Niklaas)
• Netherlands & Flanders (Sinterklaas)
• Netherlands & Flanders (Zwarte Piet)
• Norway (Julenissen)
• Poland (Gwiazdor )
• Poland (Święty Mikołaj )
• Portugal (Pai Natal)
• Portgual (more Brazilian?) (Papai Noel )
• Romania, Moldova (Moș Crăciun )
• Romania, Moldova (Moș Gerilă )
• Romania, Moldova (Moș Nicolae )
• Russia (Ded Moroz)
• Russia (Дед Мороз )
• Serbia (Božić Bata )
• Serbia (Deda Mraz )
• Serbia (Божић Бата )
• Serbia (Дедa Мрaз )
• Spain (Papá Noel)
• Spain (Reyes Magos )
• Sweden (Jultomten)
• Switzerland (Père Noël)
• Turkey (Noel Baba )
• Turkmenistan (Aýaz baba )
• Ukraine (Did Moroz)
• Ukraine (Svyatyy Mykolay)
• Ukraine (Дід Мороз)
• United Kingdom (Father Christmas)

Floatingsheep in the Lexington Herald-Leader, or Santa Likes it Hot

Sometimes analog is better than digital. This is especially true when being featured on the front page of the the Lexington Herald-Leader on Christmas Eve. Belated scans of the newspaper article about our Christmassy maps are below...

Happy Holidays from Floatingsheep.org

With good tidings from all of us, the Floatingsheep team wishes you all a very happy holiday season, no matter your religious preference. With Christmas coming soon, we don't want you to go out chasing Old Saint Nick, as we're still a bit unsure of his whereabouts. We are sure, however, that our investigative work on Christmassy geographies is featured in the December 24th edition of the Lexington Herald-Leader. From the article:

Deep in the bowels of the geography department earlier this month, while Zook was engaged in his real work on how people use spatially based Internet data, he thought he'd come up with what passes for academic humor. He wondered how he could locate the exact whereabouts of Santa (because, really, who doesn't want to know this?) and torture his graduate students (and, really, who doesn't want to do this?) at the same time.

Enjoy the write-up by Amy Wilson and your holiday celebration, no matter where you may be. And if you're really that concerned about where Santa is, you can always track him on Google Maps throughout Christmas Eve. HO HO HO!

Searching for Santa: Locating the most Christmassy Points in the World

A question asked by children and adults for generations has been, "Where does Santa live?" While some may scoff that there is an obvious answer to this ("The North Pole") any rational thinker easily sees why that simply cannot be. The lack of a suitable landmass to construct the necessary castle and workshops, the deficit of a robust power grid and the complete absence of basic raw materials like wood, plastic or sugared plums, make the North Pole a poor location for any sort of industrial- or craft-style production. Moreover, the modern obsession with planting flags (both above and beneath the ice) guarantees a steady stream of unwanted (and potentially naughty) visitors.

It is far more reasonable to suppose that Santa has utilized a combination of locational analysis, centrography, transportation topographies and central place theory to select an optimal site for his headquarters. However, since access to his list of priorities (including secrecy) and model specifications is closely guarded, replicating Santa's thinking process is simply not possible.

Instead the Anglo-American research team of FloatingSheep.org decided to leverage the power of Web 2.0 technologies (user produced services and content) to triangulate Santa's location. After all the collective knowledge of the Internet is clearly more than any one of us alone. Right? Right?

Using the patented FloatingSheep.org approach we searched for references to "santa" and "reindeer" in user generated placemarks indexed by Google Maps. After all, Santa and Reindeer go together almost as well as that classic cinema couple, Turner and Hooch. Unfortunately for lovers of folk tales, the polar projections below illustrate that there is a decided dearth of references to Santa at the North Pole.

Polar Projection of Santa

Instead we see that the entire Nordic region of Europe is covered in a virtual "duvet of Santa"! North America needs to be content with a much lighter "blanketing of St. Nick". If one assumes that Santa needs to be located as close to the pole as possible, then a few other extreme northern locations also emerge, such as the "coverlet-ing of Father Christmas" on Svalbard and the "quilt-ing of Pere Noel" on the Severnaya Zemlya archipeligo.

Polar Projection of Reindeer

Reindeer are much less prevalent than Santa (which is hard to understand given the 8:1 ratio) but the Nordic region, Svalbard and Alaska are all looking like strong contenders.

However, it is only when we amalgamate Santa and Reindeer together in some kind of googlistic geo-genetic goo that we are able to zero in on the exact locations of Santa's global enterprise. (And they called us MAD! We'll show them!) We will of course not reveal the exact locations (we're hoping for more than coal in our stockings) but will highlight the general areas.

The MegaChristmas Index – Global View

The MegaChristmas Index – Polar View

In retrospect it seems so obvious, but the most Christmassy points in the world are Los Angeles (measured in raw Christmasness) and near the town of Kittilä, Finland (measured in Christmasness per capita). Clearly in the 21st century, Santa has recognized the value of geographical diversification in order to leverage the competitive advantages of each location. Los Angeles offers access to the creative talent of show business and the technological innovation of a world class manufacturing milieu. Kittilä offers...Trees? Moss? Rare Lichen? Hmmm...as we are less familiar with Northern Finland as befits some one in today's networked society, the locational advantages of Kittilä must wait until another posting. Any Kittilä-ites (-onians? –ese? –ians?) are welcome to address this issue as well.

We were at first stymied by the strong showing of Angola for reindeer but upon reflection we theorize that this is a likely location of Santa's post-December vacation. According to this theory, Santa flies his reindeer team for several well deserved weeks of R&R incognito. Since reindeer, however, are not indigenous to tropical climates, their presence does not go unnoted. Likewise, trips to the Falkland Islands, New Zealand, Australia and Florida seem highly probably as well. It should be noted that this is simply a theory and unlike the rigorous analysis on the location of Santa's workshop, further research on this topic is needed.

Likewise we plan on taking a closer look at the sub-national networks of Santa's enterprise. The U.S. maps below confirm Southern California's Santaness but shows some highly suspicious clusters of reindeerness in Texas and Missouri. Do these represent regional distribution centers? R&D centers? Back office customer support? Only further research will tell.

Santa Normalized in the U.S.
Reindeer Normalized in the U.S.

So. Age old question answered through the judicious use of technology.

We just hope we don't end up on the naughty list for this.