Google knows what's in our souls because we ask Google the questions we're too afraid to ask anyone else. Questions like: "Why is Spain empty?" and "Why is Kazakhstan so big?"
These are questions that surprisingly large numbers of people ask, apparently, about Spain and Kazakhstan, according to Google autocomplete, which reveals stereotypes about those and other countries in Europe and Asia.
For the uninitiated, here's how it works: Google keeps tabs on the questions asked most often about various topics. When you start to type a question into Google, the search engine helpfully shows you the most popular queries associated with that topic. The results can be revealing. We recently learned what Google autocomplete says about stereotypes of U.S. states.
Now here are the strange, sometimes offensive, questions people are asking about other countries.
On the map below are the top questions that come up when you start to ask Google: "Why is [country name]" about Asian countries. Questions about wealth and size come up a lot. There's a helpful political map below the autocomplete map, for the geographically challenged.
In Europe, as in Asia, Googlers most often want to know why some countries are poor and some are rich:
