Istanbul, Turkey, is sometimes known as the City of Cats and estimates of how many cats live in the city range from over 100,000 to a million. That’s a heck of a thing to be known for. Madrid, Spain is home to the world’s oldest restaurant. And if you head to Columbia, South Carolina you’ll find the world’s biggest fire hydrant. Lots of towns have a claim to fame out there, but some of them are decidedly weirder than others.
10. Billings, Montana Has the Highest Rate of Depression in America
Disney World is sometimes called the Happiest Place on Earth. Ever wonder what the opposite of that is? Well, statistically, it seems to be Billings, Montana which has the dubious honor of having the highest rate of depression in America.
According to research, 31% of residents in Billings have been diagnosed with depression by a mental health professional. Compare that to national numbers which suggest only 7.1% of the population deals with depression.
In 2020 it was reported that 38.5% of adults in Billings had experienced symptoms of chronic depression. Suicide rates in the city are nearly double the national average. The reasons why have been linked to social isolation of a relatively small population in a large area, alcoholism, high risk groups like veterans and Native Americans, and even vitamin D deficiency which is linked to depression.
9. Okinawa, Japan Has the World’s Highest Rate of Centenarians
If you want to live to see 100, you may want to consider moving to Okinawa. The city has the distinction of being the place with the highest rate of centenarians in the world. Out of every 100,000 citizens, 68 of them are over 100 years old. That’s over three times as many centenarians as you’ll find in similarly sized US cities.
Naturally, science has tried to get to the bottom of why Okinawans in particular seem to outlive everyone else in the world. There’s a potential explanation in the diet of the citizens which is relatively high in carbohydrates and low in protein overall. The ratio for an Okinawa diet is about 10 to 1. Which means 10 times as many carbs compared to protein, which is pretty much the opposite of what many modern, Western diets suggest. Sweet potatoes account for most of their calories, and an abundance of shell ginger as well. It seems to be working well because many of the residents enjoy good health well into their hundreds.
8. American Samoa Has the Highest Military Enlistment Rate in America
It’s not easy to measure patriotism in any appreciable way and sometimes it’s not even easy to define. But if one of your criteria involved a person’s willingness to defend their country by joining the military, then you have to give credit to the people of American Samoa for being some of the most patriotic in the land. American Samoa has the highest rate of military enlistment in the whole of the United States.
The small island only has a population of 46,000 with the country’s highest rate of poverty but their recruiting station is ranked number one out of 800 nationwide. More soldiers per capita enlist from American Samoa than any other state and it’s been that way for years. The military offers an opportunity for residents to be able to better provide for their family back home. Apparently it’s a common joke among residents that you have two ways off the island – the NFL or the military.
7. Japan Has the World’s Highest Cremation Rate
You wouldn’t think death was a thing that allowed room for a lot of innovation but it has had some surprising adaptations over the years, at least in terms of how the living manage it. Obviously burying the dead has been common in many societies for years but there have been other methods from burying a body at sea to sky burials which have also had their places in history. Some modern methods include dissolving bodies. And, of course, there’s cremation.
Cremation has become the most popular way of handling a body after death, replacing burial. And nowhere is it more popular than in Japan. About 44% of Americans opt for cremation while in Japan that number is nearly 100%.
In 2012, Japan’s cremation rate was at a staggering 99.9%. The popularity can be attributed to several sources including Buddhism, which held that burying a body in the ground was polluting while cremation purified the spirit. When Emperor Jito was cremated in the year 703 it was very influential over the population which began to embrace the idea, despite Confucianism being against it.
In addition, a Japanese funeral today is just terribly expensive, about five times the cost of an American funeral at around $16,000. They also lack a lot of space to bury people. The country is four percent the size of the United States, but also has a population that’s 40% of America’s. Culturally and economically, cremation just makes more sense.
6. Papua New Guinea Has the World’s Highest Rate of Oral Cancer
No one wants to be the world leader for something horrible but, realistically, someone has to be the world leader for every horrible thing whether they like it or not. Such is the case with Papua, New Guinea, home of the world’s highest rates of oral cancer.
In PNG, 20.4 people per 100,000 will come down with oral cancer versus the next highest nation which is Pakistan at 12.2 people. It’s about 10.5 in the United States. The reason why PNG has rates nearly double those in America is due to something called betel quid.
Betel nuts, which come from a kind of palm tree, are ground up and wrapped in lime-coated leaves. This is called betel quid. If you chew it, you’ll be treated to a very noticeable red or purple color to your lips and mouth. About 600 million people in the world chew it, and it’s carcinogenic.
About 25,000 people per year in PNG die from oral cancer. The nut causes a slight high when people chew it, and it only costs $1, so it’s remarkably popular. And even as the World Health Organization tries to convince people it’s dangerous, it’s still advertised as harmless so many people don’t believe it and the efforts to stem the tides are slow going.
5. Scotland Has the Highest Rate of Cocaine Use in the World
The stereotypical things we associated with Scotland tend to be kilts, bagpipes and haggis. You can add one more to the list as it turns out that Scotland also has the highest rate of cocaine use in the world.
Just under 62% of people surveyed in Scotland had used cocaine, and they also tended to use twice as much as the global average. Where most people indulged in 0.5 grams in a single session, Scots took down 1.2 grams.
In total, about 3.9% of Scottish residents between 16 and 64 use cocaine in a given year. That put them well ahead of England with its 2.5% and the US at 2.4%. In the UK, Scotland also ranked number one for heroin, weed, meth and ecstasy.
4. Iran Has the Highest Rate of Nose Jobs in the World
Iran and its treatment of women has been a hot button issue for a long time now and that came to a head with serious violence and protesting in 2022. But this definitely wasn’t born in a vacuum and standards women are expected to live up to in Iran has been an issue for some time. As far back as 2008, Oprah was doing shows on the prevalence of nose jobs in the country, which holds the title of having the highest rate of nose jobs anywhere in the world.
In 2011, the rate of nose jobs in Iran was 180 per 100,000, or 134, 766 per year. This ranks at around four times the rate that the surgery is performed in America. Part of the reason for this seems to be the dress code for women in Iran which leaves so much of them covered that facial features seem to become more prominent as a result. And since the nose is such a prominent feature of the face, there has been a push to make it “perfect,” by whatever standards someone might decide what that means.
At some point, the nose job became symbolic of status and there are stories of women keeping their nose bandages long after their nose has healed just so people will see them and think they had a recent surgery. And getting a nose job isn’t always about needing or wanting one. The surgery shows you come from a family that has the means to take care of you, so a surgically altered nose is seen as more desirable than a nose that would be considered genetically perfect. In other words, it’s better to pay for the perfect nose than to simply have a perfect nose already.
3. Eswatini Has the Most Lightning Deaths Per Capita.
They say that lightning never strikes twice, but don’t tell that to anyone in Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland. They hold the dubious honor of being the country with the greatest number of lightning deaths per capita.
From 2000 to 2007, 123 people died from lightning strikes in the country, a rate of about 15.5 people per 1,000,000. About 20 people per year die from lightning strikes in America, but keep in mind the US has a population of nearly 330 million. Eswatini’s population is 1.16 million. If people in the US died at a rate on par with Eswatini there would be over 4,200 lightning deaths per year.
Interestingly enough, most of the lightning deaths are men, representing 66% of the victims, and they most frequently happened inside houses with walking and hiding under a tree rounding out the top three locations where the deaths occurred.
2. Texas Has the Highest Rate of Uninsured People in America
It’s hard to overstate just how important insurance is in the world we live in. Literally any kind of insurance, really. But when you live in America, health insurance has to be at the top of the list. The average cost of a day in the hospital in America is $2,607.If you had a heart attack, you could end up paying over $100,000. And some survivors of Covid-19 literally got million dollar bills from their hospitals. So yes, you want insurance. And that bodes poorly for Texans.
Over 20% of Texans are uninsured as of 2021, the highest rate in the country. With the national average at 9.2%, that makes Texans twice as likely to be uninsured. This is thanks to a lack of Medicaid expansion and the fact that many jobs in Texas just don’t offer insurance.
1. The US Has the Highest Rate of Illicit Drug Use in the World
Earlier we showed that Scotland ranks highest in the world for cocaine use but that was just one drug. If you take a look at illicit drugs as a whole, then the United States takes the crown for being the nation with the highest usage rates. More than 5% of Americans qualify as having dependence on an illicit drug, more than any other nation.
In the US, 22.03 people per 100,000 die as a result of drug use,which was only topped by Belarus but the difference was in Belarus’s numbers were related to alcohol rather than drugs. In 2021, around 32 million Americans were using some kind of drugs. Marijuana and prescription stimulants were at the top of the list, along with meth.