Interactive Map of Heavy Metal Bands By Country Per 100,000 People

Where are heavy metal bands the most dense when compared against a country’s total population?  The original static map (shown below) was created by Reddit user depo_s who took the listing of bands by country from the Encyclopaedia Metallum and calculated the number of bands per 100,000 people using numbers from the CIA World Factbook.

For a more up-to-date article see: Geography of Heavy Metal Bands (2021)

The Nordic areas seem to rule in terms of the highest proportion of heavy metal bands to residents.  Finland leads the list of countries by far with 53.2 heavy metal bands per 100,000 residents.  Sweden is the second most dense country with 37.14 metal bands per 100,000 residents.

Interestingly, the Encyclopaedia Metallum lists Svalbard, an  archipelago that makes up the northern part of Norway as its own country.  With only one band but also only 1,970 residents, it ranks as the second densest listing.  

The interactive map below shows the density of heavy metal bands per capita. The compiled data can be found at the end of this article. Six areas from the dataset were not able to shown on the map below: Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Guam, Laos, New Caledonia, Puerto Rico, and Svalbard.

With the fourth place ranking, Liechtenstein with 27.24 bands per 100,000 residents was the only non nordic placement in the top five list.  Finally, Norway, was listed as the fifth densest with 26.99 bands per 100,000.  Adjusting for Svalbard didn’t have much impact on that proportion.

Table: Heavy Metal Bands by Country

This table lists the proportion of metal bands per 100,000 people, number of bands, and total population by country for each country with data about heavy metal bands.

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