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Europe According to Stereotype

A London-based graphic designer has created a series of maps depicting Europe according to the national stereotypes in the minds of various peoples. Yanko Tsvetkov, a Bulgarian living in Great Britain, created the first one in 2009 in the midst of the energy dispute between Russia and the Ukraine. Russia was labelled “Paranoid Oil Empire”, the Ukraine “Gas Stealers”, and the E.U. as “Union of Subsidized Farmers”. Switzerland was simply “Bank”.

“I created the first one in 2009 because at that time there was an energy crisis in Europe,” Mr. Tsvetkov said. “I just created it to amuse my friends but when I put it up on my website so many people liked it that I decided to really focus on the project of mapping the stereotypes based on different places in Europe. I was surprised by the reaction because I never really expected it to take off like this.”

Europe according to the French.

Europe according to the Germans.

Europe according to the Italians.

Europe according to the British.

Europe according to the Americans.

Published at 11:24 am on Tuesday 21 September 2010. Categories: Featured France Germany Great Britain World Tags: , .
Comments

Hahah…these are awesome.

Could you provide link to larger size of these map? It’s hard to read the smaller text

jenny 21 Sep 2010 11:05 pm

I simply love these maps. Soooooo accurate and amusing.

Michael Hodson 22 Sep 2010 8:38 am

Yea,bigger maps required…

Vozho 22 Sep 2010 10:30 am

Click the link at the beginning of the article.

Andrew Cusack 22 Sep 2010 10:33 am

Great maps! Click to expand possible? Makes European History plausible! Do more!

Uncle B 22 Sep 2010 1:41 pm

Funny….

….and close to the truth too.

Oddbod 22 Sep 2010 3:19 pm

This was probably made by a British person, Americans would never refer to Britain as ‘Mummy’, we’d label it as ‘Minion’ probably XP.

Noah 22 Sep 2010 11:37 pm

@Noah – The text before the images explains who and why; saves having to assume.

Simon 23 Sep 2010 4:30 am

Noah

Not minion, we would say “Pudle”

Wolf Pack

wolf pack 23 Sep 2010 9:12 am

Briliant. when are you doing the America´s?

Ed 23 Sep 2010 1:27 pm

Thanks for the feature!

alphadesigner 23 Sep 2010 3:36 pm

Absolutely hilarious! :D

Pierre Sauvignon 23 Sep 2010 10:43 pm

Great maps!unbelievable

Vessela 24 Sep 2010 5:36 am

These are incredibly funny! He’s managed to put his finger on the different perspectives and stereotypes so cleverly.

Sheila @ A Postcard a Day 24 Sep 2010 6:30 am

excellent!

marko 24 Sep 2010 1:01 pm

This is pretty epic, especially the American one

Jay 24 Sep 2010 5:47 pm

Wow, that’s priceless.

crusader88 24 Sep 2010 10:06 pm

Great job! As an American, I love the accuracy with America’s map. Well done.

Jim 25 Sep 2010 5:06 am

:))…great ideea!

Husac 25 Sep 2010 7:50 am

It’s really funny. It would be great to see a map from russian’s point of view, and I could help a bit with it :)

Russian 25 Sep 2010 1:07 pm

How do the Swedish see the European map?

Mikael 26 Sep 2010 6:17 am

ha ha – stolen from: ‘the spiting image book’

peter 26 Sep 2010 6:25 am

great work. I agree it would be great if map was bigger and changle Britian to “bad teeth”.

throbo 26 Sep 2010 6:46 am

We have no comment because our glorious Republiek van Limburg is not even listed on any of these maps!

Harrumph!

Dave
Rumunj

Dave Cooper 26 Sep 2010 8:41 am

One map was missing – Europe according to Estonians. A bit more humorous, but also accurate :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUgqXGu_gTQ

Aare 26 Sep 2010 3:31 pm

For some reason, I’m imagining the Ethiopian prime minster waving the “How Italy sees Europe” map in front of the UN and claiming Naples.

Positively hilarious, but are there bigger versions?

K. Dontoh 27 Sep 2010 4:29 pm

Too close to the bone, people. Too close. On most of those maps that=which-used-to-be-Yugoslavia is counted as “uncharted”. NONE of the people “credited” with those maps know anything about the region at all, not even enough to make a joke about it – and yet they all united to destroy it. The joke in the American map is that it was retro-fitted to rationalise to themselves the reasons behind their having led the destruction. This HURTS, people. I didn’t think it was possible for it still to hurt but it hurts.

It’s only funny when you haven’t lost it all.

Alma Hromic 29 Sep 2010 1:04 pm

Ahahah! Sad but true!
An italian

An italian 30 Sep 2010 8:25 am

Very good, although you’re giving us too much credit thinking that Americans will associate Brazil with Portugal. If anything most would probably think its colonial history originates in Spain.

An American 30 Sep 2010 8:57 pm

It would be great if you did one for Russia. The UK could be ‘Berezhovsky Hiding Here Somewhere’ and Bulgaria could be ’16th Soviet Republic’.

Travis 2 Oct 2010 10:32 am

I would refer to the Balkans as more of a war zone in the eyes of Europeans than as uncharted. There are a lot of European military, EU, OSCE, NGO etc personnel still there.

Jose 2 Oct 2010 4:32 pm

Simply amazing!

I love european culture 1 Dec 2010 11:16 am
Emre 6 Dec 2010 8:33 am

hey! And where are “Europe according to the Spaniards”.

It’d be the funniest one, believe me.

Hello world, we exist.

And, of curse… We aren’t mexicans! ;P

dhammapada 27 Jan 2011 9:51 am

Cool maps!!!

I’m surprised Romania is actually marked on most of the maps, unlike most of the Balkans…

Laura 27 Jan 2011 8:42 pm

This is fantastic… Perfect for describing to my mates why we are NOT part of Europe lol… Made me laugh :)

Nic 8 Mar 2011 5:00 am

I love being uncharted =)

n. 8 Mar 2011 2:35 pm

The American map is great… but shouldn’t much of France be a nude beach?

Rick 12 May 2011 8:47 pm

I like how Danes are vikings in all of the maps.

Frederic 30 Jun 2011 5:39 pm

i am surprised, that according to US, the whole Europe is not marked as – Not America

Rita 11 Oct 2011 11:05 am

Nice work-very detailed about Europe. Would be nice to see detailed maps of Asian attitudes- like how the Koreans view Japan or Taiwanese view China…or Indians view Pakistan or Australia/Britain/Americans…

Very entertaining. Hope there’s more to look forward to in future

Siamcatx 21 Nov 2011 1:30 pm

OMG…These is too funny …Thank you…You made my day and night…hahaha…

Monica W. 1 Dec 2014 6:50 am

Couldnt they think of anything better for the netherlands?

Unfunny 28 Apr 2021 3:39 am
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