Ten maps about animals, including which countries think raccoons are very clean bears, where every whale belongs to the King, where you can’t own just one guinea pig, and how many legs a chicken has.
Average number of legs per chicken, by state
Two legs per chicken in every state except Kentucky, where the average comes out at 2.4.
Countries that think raccoons are just very clean bears
In German a raccoon is a Waschbär, a washing bear, copied from its old scientific name Ursus lotor from 1758. Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish and Japanese all went for a washing bear too.
Sources: Wiktionary, Waschbär, Wiktionary, raccoon (translations).
Countries where it's illegal to own just one guinea pig
Switzerland’s animal protection rules, in force since September 2008, say guinea pigs are too social to live alone, so they have to be kept in groups of at least two.
Source: Swissinfo, fact check: lonely guinea pigs.
Countries where every whale belongs to the King
Whales and sturgeon are royal fish under a statute from 1324, and any that are taken become the personal property of the monarch. Scotland only claims the whales too big to be pulled ashore by a cart and six oxen.
Source: Wikipedia, Royal fish.
Places where cats are illegal
Svalbard bans bringing in most live mammals. Anyone leaving the settlements has to carry something to scare off polar bears, and the Governor recommends taking a firearm.
Sources: Wikipedia, Longyearbyen, Governor of Svalbard, weapons.
Countries where handling a salmon in suspicious circumstances is a crime
It’s section 32 of the Salmon Act 1986. In England and Wales it has covered trout, eels, lampreys and smelt as well since 2009.
This map has its own post: Countries where handling a salmon in suspicious circumstances is a crime.
Sources: Salmon Act 1986, section 32, Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, section 229.
What each country calls a hippo, translated literally
Hippopotamus is Greek for river horse. German also has Nilpferd, a Nile horse, Russian calls it a begemot, from the Hebrew behemoth, and in Afrikaans it’s a seekoei, a sea cow.
Sources: Wiktionary, hippopotamus, Nilpferd, бегемот, seekoei.
Which foreigners each country named the cockroach after
In Russian it’s the Prussian, and in Czech, Croatian and Macedonian it’s named after the Swabians. English blames Germany because Linnaeus was sent a specimen from there in 1767.
This map has its own post: Which foreigners each country named the cockroach after.
Source: Christian Science Monitor, When names for cockroaches reflect national rivalries.
Goats per sheep in Europe
The Netherlands comes closest to one goat per sheep. The Dutch statistics office counted 553,000 goats and 602,000 sheep there in December 2025.
Source: CBS (Statistics Netherlands), livestock.
Each state's unofficial state animal
Florida gets an alligator in a pool and New Jersey gets the Jersey Devil. West Virginia’s Mothman was first reported near Point Pleasant in November 1966, and the town has held a Mothman Festival since 2002.
Source: Wikipedia, Mothman.
Share these maps
More from Terrible Maps
The bookTerrible Maps: Hilarious Maps for a Ridiculous WorldOut now in the UK, US, Canada and Australia.
The shopShirts, hoodies, mugs and printsIncluding the Africa / Asia T-shirt.There’s a new terrible map most days on Facebook and Instagram.
