Auf welcher Straßenseite fährt jedes Land? [OC]

I’m currently in Kenya, which drives on the left, but I’m originally from Germany where we drive on the right. The switch always throws me off for the first few days. Got me wondering what the full global picture looks like.

Turns out only about 54 out of 195 countries drive on the left, mostly former British colonies plus a few others like Japan and Thailand.

Sources: World Bank, CIA World Factbook, UN, Natural Earth (map geometry)

Tools: Python (matplotlib, geopandas)

Did I get any of these wrong? Would love corrections if so, some of the smaller countries were tricky to verify.

Seems like a massive minority but it’s as much as 35% of the population

The reason that the UK and its colonies drive on the left can be traced back to the Romans, who marched on the left to keep their sword hands in the centre of the road. This was also the case across all the former Roman colonies until Napoleon, who switched to the right. As Napoleon never conquered Britain, the British remained on the left.

I have driven on the left in several different countries, so far without incident.

That said, the most odd is the U.S. Virgin Islands, where you drive on the left but using American cars. That was an especially odd experience.

But Scottish „B“ roads are the ones that have been the most intimidating.

Burma/Myanmar used to drive on the left too until one day (not joking at all) their dictator had a dream that driving on the left would make the people communist or whatever, so he consulted a wizard who picked an auspicious day to have the entire country start driving on the right literally overnight.

Apart from all the immediate issues that this change created, Burma is poor af and most of its vehicles are used imports from Japan, India, and Thailand meaning they’re all RWD cars… everyone is driving with the steering wheel on the wrong side. This creates interesting scenarios like if you’re on public bus, you have to alright _into_ the traffic lane.

Malta almost invisible in the map, also drives on the left.

I was not aware of this. I thought the US was in the minority by driving on the right side of the road. I didn’t realize basically all of Europe did as well, with the exception of the UK and Ireland.

I thought in India they drive wherever the hell they want.

I mean picture is not HD, or you’re forgetting Malta!