The Countries That Swear the Most, Mapped

It might be looked down on, but swearing is a perfectly natural part our language. Good thing, too, since letting curse words fly has been linked to everything from intelligence and honesty to an increase in our ability to tolerate pain. And now, a fascinating new analysis by language blog Wordtips has taken a deep dive into how swearing differs around the world—and in doing so, has singled out the world’s most (and least) linguistically profane nations.

Using a database of 1.7 million English language location-tagged tweets, the site trimmed extraneous words from users’ posts, eliminated multiple posts from the same users so that just one tweet per user remained, and then counted the number of profanities in the text—revealing some intriguing worldwide trends (with the caveat that the findings may be skewed in favor of English-speaking countries because non-English-language tweets weren’t counted).

The Countries That Swear the Most (and the Least)

It might come as little surprise to discover that the United States was found to be the country that swears the most—and by quite a margin, too: 41.6 out of every 1000 American tweets containing at least one swear word. The world’s second most profane country, the United Kingdom, had a score of 28.6 out of 1000. Australia (26.6), New Zealand (25.2), and Canada (24.6) filled out the rest of the top five, with strong showings for Mexico (24.5), Colombia (22.6), Sudan (21.3), and Norway (19.9).

The analysis found that the countries that swear the least are all in the Middle East: Lebanon (7.2), Saudia Arabia (5.6), and Bahrain (4.3) were all beaten by Kuwait, in last place worldwide, where an average of just 3.6 tweets in every 1000 contained a swear word. Other countries with low scores included Ethiopia (6.9), Nepal (6.5), and Cambodia (6).

Swearing by City and Continent

Using geotagged tweets as the basis of the analysis allowed the Wordtips researchers to narrow their data down further, investigating the posts city by city on particular continents.

When it came to the world’s most foul-mouthed cities, the U.S. once again came out comfortably on top; in fact, all five of the North America’s sweariest cities are located in the United States. The most profane city, Baltimore, had a score of 78.2, followed by Baton Rouge (72.9) in second. Atlanta (66.7), Detroit (66.0) and Houston (63.2) complete the top five.

The American city that swears the least, meanwhile, is Lexington, Kentucky, which scored just 20.2. Cities with similarly low scores include Springfield, Missouri (20.3), Ann Arbor, Michigan (21.4), Madison, Wisconsin (21.8), and St. Paul, Minnesota (25.5).

Outside of North America, meanwhile, South America proved the world’s second most profane continent, with the Colombian city of Cali recording an average of 46 sweary tweets per 1000—more than twice that of its closest rival, the Chilean capital Santiago (19.8). Europe came in third worldwide, with four of its top five cities being located in the UK: Newcastle (34.5) is officially Europe’s sweariest city, narrowly followed by Leeds (33.1), Birmingham (31.0) and Manchester (30.7). In fact, the only non-UK city in the European top 10 was Dublin, with a score of 23.5.

The world’s least profane continent was Asia, where Singapore was crowned the sweariest city with a score of 21.3. Africa’s sweariest city, Lagos in Nigeria, scored 21.8, putting both it and Africa as a whole far below the rest of the world. All four of Oceania’s sweariest cities, meanwhile, were in Australia and New Zealand, with Brisbane (29.7) coming out on top, followed by Auckland (27.7), Melbourne (26.9), and Sydney (26.5).

The U.S. States That Swear the Most

Breaking down the U.S. data state by state showed an intriguing imbalance between America’s most and least sweary regions. While Maryland (helped in no small part by Baltimore) was crowned the United States’ most profane state with a score of 66.3, the least sweary states overall could be found in New England, the Midwest, and the central U.S.

South Dakota scored just 21.0 out of 1000, ranking bottom out of all the United States, alongside Vermont (24.3), North Dakota (26.3), and Minnesota (26.8).

In fact, so averse were the states at the bottom of the list to using curse words that even the highest-scoring city in Vermont, Burlington, was found to have scored barely one-third that of America’s sweariest city, Baltimore (Burlington had just 24.3 tweets containing a swear word). Other cities that ranked low included both North and South Dakota’s sweariest cities, Fargo (29) and Rapid City (26.6).

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