Map of the World’s National Holidays

[Jaga]

A surprising map of the world’s national holidays (only two countries have no national day) - among them Britain and Denmark.

Greenland celebrates the longest day in the year......

[Jaga]

3) Britain and Denmark have no national days.

To paraphrase one of the commenters on the Reddit thread, is certainly is ironic that the British empire that is indirectly responsible for so many of the world’s independence days has no real national day of its own. Britain, after all, developed its political institutions pretty gradually, so there was no real “Bastille Day” moment that defines the modern nation. And the empire has been pretty consistently breaking apart over the last half century – Scotland is maybe next – so it’s not like there is a national unification to celebrate.

As for Denmark, it has a national liberation day and some people celebrate international worker’s day, but neither is a public holiday.

4) The outliers are few but tell you a lot about those countries.

Take, for example, Bhutan, which every celebrates the anniversary of Ugyen Wangchuck’s 1907 election as the nation’s first hereditary king (yes, you read that correctly), but not its 1949 independence. In Thailand, one of the very few countries outside of Europe that was never formally colonized, the king’s birthday is celebrated (don’t insult him or you might go to jail, per the lese majeste laws). Japan formally celebrates the anniversary of an ancient mythical emperor, although the holiday is mostly ignored today, due in part to its connections with Japan’s ugly imperial history.

Portugal celebrates the 1580 death of celebrated national poet Luis de Camoes, Spain celebrates Columbus Day (yes, the holiday is a little controversial there as well, although not as much as in the U.S.), the Netherlands celebrates the queen’s birthday but it still use her mother’s birthday for the date and, in Greenland, the celebrate the longest day of the year.

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/02/26/a-surprising-map-of-the-worlds-national-holidays-only-two-countries-have-no-national-day/?wprss=rss_blogpost&tid=pp_widget

[karl]

Jaga

I was curious of this map, for it list Dänemark as with out a national/public holiday, it has many....

storbritannien.um.dk/en/about-denmark/public-holidays-denmark/

As a person, I have little idea to the UK, but perhaps if Leslie was to come to us in a vision/ghost of times past, or as a knight upon his horse of knowledge, we would be most enlightened, I must say....

Karl

[Jaga]

Great Britain and Danemark were both occupiers. I do not think they were really occupied.... maybe this is one of the reasons why they donot have any national day......althouh Denmark should celebrate sommer day just like Greenland which is officially under Danish protectorate.