Listen to the songs named after the world's leading destinations

When you think of songs named after countries, you probably think of songs like 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina' by Madonna, 'Born in the USA' by Bruce Springsteen or 'Walk Like an Egyptian by The Bangles Did you know that every country has a song named after it? From The Bouncing Souls' "Letter from Iraq" to David Guetta's "Montenegro", there’s a song for every nation. Budget Direct used Spotify data to identify the most-streamed song named after every country and created a world map of music. The idea began with the majority of the world being in lockdown. Budget Direct decided to take readers on a trip around the world without needing to leave their home. The company also created a world map and individual maps of continents to showcase its findings.

As music and travel often go hand in hand, especially during those long road trips with friends and family, many musicians find inspiration from a number of travel destinations.

The company said in a press statement: “To create these maps, we started by searching for each country’s name on Spotify, refining the search into just songs. Next, we selected the songs with the highest popularity and singled out the song that had the most plays for each country. We used the 2nd most popular song for countries that share a name (e.g., Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland)".

One of the largest song titles on our world map is also the most-played track. China, by Anuel AA, has been streamed an astonishing 631,980,232 times. This reworking of Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me” doesn’t mention China in the lyrics, but has strong Chinese elements.

The South African National Anthem by Overtone were among the popular songs in Africa with 688 209 streams. Other popular tunes come from artists like Red Hot Chili Peppers (Ethiopia), Rihanna (Russia), Frank Ocean (Sierra Leone), Lauv (Canada), Shawn Mendes (Japan), Hans Zimmer (Singapore) and The Tallest Man on Earth (Spain).