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European Places With “Saint” or “Holy” In Their Names

March 3, 2023 19 Comments

European Places With

Map created by Szymon Pifczyk, Marcin Gębala, Aleksander Deryło, & Bartosz Chyż via BIQData.pl

The map above shows European cities, towns and villages that have the term “saint” or “holy” in their names. The data comes from the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

Overall, France is the clear winner with 8,963 “holy” places followed by Spain with 4,444 and Italy with 2,638. At the other extreme you have Sweden and Norway with just 2 “holy” places each.

Interestingly, the UK actually beats out Ireland in terms of places named after a “Saint” or including the word “holy”, with 327 compared to just 34 in Ireland.

You can read the full article and learn more about the data and methodology here.

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Filed Under: Europe Tagged With: religion

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Comments

  1. Erig Le Brun de La Bouëxière says

    May 17, 2017 at 12:21 pm

    They would have found way much more if they had considered the celtic names of the breton (Brittany) localities. Quite every breton village is named after a saint but the name of the saint is accompanied by a prefix significating “monastery” (lan), “parish” (plo/plou) “hermitage” (loc) etc… the word saint is not written but it’s implied.

    It’s the same in most of celtic countries. In Wales the welsh laguage prefixes are mainly the same than in breton “Llan” “Lok” etc… In Ireland they could have counted the “kil” cities (Killarney etc…)

    Doing so, they just would have had to paint Ireland Wales and Brittany red…

    Reply
    • Clint says

      January 9, 2020 at 2:30 pm

      Very true, I did a very quick and dirty search for welsh Llann and Llan place names and indeed you would have paint Wales red, also Lan and Lann in Cornwall as you pointed out. Thanks for the Kil reference for Ireland, I was looking for the literal term for Naomh i.e. saint in modern Irish.

      Reply
      • Shea Reynolds says

        September 13, 2020 at 9:21 pm

        Also Mull at the beginning of the name in Ireland meaning follower of bald headed munk. Tober meaning well (holy).

        Reply
      • Philip Owen says

        November 6, 2020 at 9:30 pm

        Not just Kil. Wales also has Cil…

        Reply
        • Philip Owen says

          November 6, 2020 at 9:34 pm

          Oh and Clas… Glas… for a monk’s hermitage, the monk usually being a Saint of Celtic Christianity. Glas-tonbury being a doubly distorted derivation from such a root.

          Reply
  2. mainwasser says

    May 22, 2017 at 12:51 pm

    So, Galicia is the most holy place in Europe!

    Reply
    • Reggie says

      January 9, 2020 at 2:41 pm

      Not sure you can claim that simply by place name correlation, also the map misses out a lot of saint designated place names where the compiler has not understood certain languages or idiomatic language usage.

      Reply
  3. rhysllwyd says

    June 19, 2017 at 9:26 pm

    This map is incorrect, my friend correctly plotted out the Llan’s in Wales. All the Llan’s bar a few exeptions are named after a Celtic Saint.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b010cf5f483a4058b1796cc7ecc5b7db74700e78c12dc9984cf9eee5564be8ac.jpg

    Reply
  4. Ainis Stankaitis says

    June 28, 2017 at 8:06 am

    Ha! Ain’t no saints in Lithuania 🙂

    Reply
    • MAGA says

      December 27, 2018 at 6:36 pm

      The last country in Europe baptized, so…

      Reply
      • Šventas says

        February 6, 2020 at 9:41 am

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ventoji,_Lithuania

        Reply
    • Diana says

      April 24, 2021 at 4:38 pm

      I belive there is, but not in this map. I’m from Latvia and there is place Svēte (holly)

      Reply
  5. Zólya Atilla says

    October 30, 2017 at 11:46 am

    If they would analyse the name of localities not only in the „ruling” language of the countries, then also in the language of the national minorities witch are there living, that map would be more accurate and real… in Romania are living approx. 1 500 000 Hungarian/Sekler, and a big part of their localities are named from the patron saint of the church of the locality, but the translation of the locality’s name in the Romanian (official language) this isn’t mirrored, the original sense is lost.
    For exemple:
    Csíkszentlélek – Leliceni
    Csíkszentmiklós – Nicolau
    Dicsőszentmárton – Târnâveni
    Gyergyószentmiklós – Georgeni
    Homoródszentmárton – Mărtiniş
    Székelyszentlélek – Bisericani
    Székelyszentmihály – Mihăileni
    Nyárádszentmárton – Mitreşti
    Tordaszentlászló – Săvădisla

    Reply
  6. Holy says

    June 25, 2019 at 5:32 pm

    Holysloot is missing

    Reply
  7. MR. Twister says

    September 16, 2019 at 6:14 pm

    What about Saint Petersburg?

    Reply
  8. g-guy says

    July 24, 2020 at 10:30 am

    Just a question :
    Why is Turkey a non-European country and Switzerland is ?
    – If it is about political EU then Switzerland as well must be out of Europ.
    – If it is geographical then Turkey is in Europ the same way Russia is as well.

    Reply
  9. Andy says

    September 14, 2020 at 5:00 pm

    I think this also boils down to how you define a place name. Does it have to be the official political name of a city, town, or village, or do names of non-politically defined neibourhoods or geographical features also count? If you start looking for saints names in things like mountains, forests, streams, farms, islands etc, I guess you will find plenty more. Also if you do not just use the official language but minority or non recognised languages or word etymologies even where tehse are no longer obvious.

    Reply
  10. shixilun says

    July 17, 2022 at 6:58 pm

    The Channel Islands are rife with “Saint” names. Ten out of twelve parishes in Jersey (where I live) are named after saints.
    And yet no red at all?

    Reply
  11. Philip Owen says

    August 11, 2022 at 8:33 am

    This came back on Twitter. Kirk-, -kirk and -kirchen would probably populate Northern and German Europe. Eglwys and Eglos (meaning church) would also add a few more in Celtic areas.

    Reply

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