Study Reveals The Most Superstitious People and Places in Britain

Many cultures mark the winter solstice with celebrations and ceremonies. One superstition around the shortest day was that the sun stood still. In fact, the word solstice comes from the Latin “solstitium” which means “sun standing still”. This belief is marked in rituals held around the globe. To mark the solstice, data analysts have conducted an investigation into superstitions across Great Britain. The result is the Fortune Atlas, a detailed map that reveals the most superstitious Brits and where they live.

Glasgow is the most superstitious region in Great Britain. Many Scots still rely on lucky white heather and fear the birth of a black-faced sheep. In fact, 12 of the 20 most superstitious counties are located in Scotland. At the other end of the spectrum, the least superstitious county in Great Britain is also located in Scotland: Banffshire.

The analysts found that deep beliefs in phenomena that cannot be explained are more common in bigger cities. London is 81 percent more superstitious than the UK average, Liverpool is 69 percent above, Manchester is 43 percent above, and also cities like Birmingham, Leeds and Edinburgh show tendency towards superstitious beliefs.

Meanwhile, people in widely rural areas like Norfolk, Warwickshire, Suffolk and West Sussex are among the least interested in fortune nationwide. In fact, 11 of the 18 least superstitious counties are located in the countryside of England.

Believe it or not: highlights from the Fortune Atlas:

• A belief in divine powers is particularly high in Westminster. In fact, the borough that’s home to the British parliament is 220 percent more superstitious than the national average, and is also the most superstitious borough of Greater London.

• The most superstitious town in the UK is Ballachulish, Inverness, in the Scottish Highlands.

• Glaswegians are highly superstitious compared to the national average.The city of Glasgow is one of the most superstitious cities nationwide (43 percent over the average). By comparison, other major Scottish cities are also comparatively superstitious, such as Edinburgh (32 percent above average). In contrast, the people of Aberdeen are only three percent more superstitious than average.

Methodology: All data was collected by Rascasse, an AI-driven consumer insights platform on behalf of bestcasinosites.net. For this study interest around the keywords superstition and fortune were collected and mapped as well as researched by data analysts. On average, 3.49 percent of British internet users left data points indicating that they were interested in aspects related to superstition or lucky charms. The classification into least, slightly, rather and most superstitious was derived from the national average. More Details on the methodology here.