# What are the liberal or conservative regions/cities in other nations **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 17, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268 "2015-05-17T22:18:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/1 "2015-05-17T22:18:31Z")
In the US, the most conservative areas tend to be the south (especially the deep south) while the most liberal is the northeast (particularly new england, personally I’d rate that area more liberal than the west coast). Citywise there are lots of variance, but most large cities are liberal. Either way, the reason I ask is because I was reading about how St. Petersberg is the most liberal city in Russia, but even there they had problems with putting on gay pride parades. Can a Russian liberal be compared to a US liberal though (the same way you probably couldn’t compare a US liberal to a European liberal, a US liberal is more moderate by EU standards). ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/2 "2015-05-18T00:02:06Z")
With the rural/urban split, I think the idea that rural areas tend to be more _socially_ conservative is near universal but in some places they’re not necessarily conservative on other issues and may or may not reliably vote conservative. The situation in the US where rural voters have seemingly internalized the marriage between social and economic conservatism (even when it’s against their own economic interests) is unusual. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/3 "2015-05-18T00:09:49Z")
In before “Democrats are right wing!” posts. Well in Europe and some places, “liberal” means something like libertarian - often more conservative on the economic side. You’d have to specify - are you looking for gay rights as a specific example. Then you’ll get weird examples like Pim Fortuyn. So direct comparisons/analogies are flawed. Bavaria is known as a conservative part of Germany. ---
**Author:** ![journeyman\_southpaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5e9695/32.png) [@journeyman\_southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/journeyman_southpaw)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/4 "2015-05-18T01:07:13Z")
In Canada, Alberta is known as the most conservative province - the “Texas of Canada” with oil and cowboy hats and stuff like that. It was a huge political shift when they recently elected the most left-wing of the country’s three main political parties, finally kicking out the Conservatives after more than 40 years. British Columbia is known as the most liberal province, with a lot of stereotypes about California finding familiar application there. Pot-smoking snowboarders, stuff like that. Toronto might be thought of as left-wing because they have a very big gay pride parade, but that’s kinda more the downtown part of the city, the suburbs are a more complex story. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/5 "2015-05-18T03:44:30Z")
Spain has this situation where on one hand Barcelona and Madrid are supposed to be the most “avant-garde” places, but on the other the regions which often get used to try out new legal mechanisms are tiny, weeny, provincial and who gives a shit Navarre and Euskadi. The Socialist Party tends to be strongest in our most backward regions, hereby defined as those with lowest scholarization, worst healthcare services and more _machismo_. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/6 "2015-05-18T07:20:26Z")
In Taiwan, the south votes for the liberal party while the north votes for the conservative party, however, I’d describe the voters of both north and south as being socially liberal folks. They just vote for different parties. It doesn’t seem like an explanation that makes sense, but that’s how I see it. Isn’t Scotland considerably more liberal than the rest of the UK, and that was one reason they wanted to secede, to become “Scottinavia?” ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/7 "2015-05-18T08:23:22Z")
Britain-The left is strongest in Scotland, Wales, northern England, and London due to a combination of being urban centres, and past cultural traditions pitting dominant Tory England against the “Celtic Fringe”. France-Lots of shifts here. Paris used to be conservative since middle-class residents lived in the city proper while working-class individuals lived in the _banlieues_, but this has been changing with the rise of the Bobo class. Meanwhile southern France which was quite left-wing is now right-wing due to demographic changes, especially _Pied Noirs_ from Algeria. Old, left-wing coal areas such as Nord are now voting for the National Front due to increasing fears of immigration and alienation due to socioeconomic decline. Brittany, Alsace-Lorraine, and some other parts of France generally retain their Catholic/conservative traditions. Germany-Some urban vs. rural divide here as with other countries as well as a Catholic-Protestant divide, with historically Catholic areas such as Bavaria and rural parts of the Rhineland being more conservative then historically Protestant areas. Additionally former East Germany is far more left-wing, being a stronghold of the far-leftists. Sweden-Similar story to France except conservatives remain dominant in inner cities like Stockholm while the Social Democrats ironically do the best in the remote northern provinces since Swedish industrialization often occurred in smaller towns and there aren’t as many immigrants in the north to shift voters towards right-wing parties as is the case in southern Sweden. South Korea-Here one of the major divides is between Gyeongsang Province (where Busan is) and Jeolla Province (where Gwangju is), the former being conservative and the latter left-wing. While some attribute its origins to way back to the Three Kingdoms, the most obvious explanation is that most of South Korea’s Presidents have been from Gyeongsang Province leading to it being favoured in developmental policy while pro-democracy agitation in Jeolla was brutally crushed in 1980. The rest of South Korea outside of Seoul and environs tend to be conservative while Greater Seoul is somewhat left-leaning although also a swing region. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/8 "2015-05-18T09:20:24Z")
Israel - the epicenter of liberalism is right here in midtown Tel Aviv, AKA the State of Tel Aviv, AKA the Bubble. It gets more right wing from there on out, and exponentially more right wing - and more religious - the further you get from the sea. Jerusalem is strongly right-wing (its liberals tend to congregate in its western suburbs), and don’t get me started on the Territories. The only exception are rural areas dominated by old-school kibbutzim and moshavim, which retain their socialist tendencies, although not as much as they did in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Cestrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Cestrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cestrian)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/9 "2015-05-18T15:42:04Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Isn’t Scotland considerably more liberal than the rest of the UK, and that was one reason they wanted to secede, to become “Scottinavia?” Scotland is nationalist, apart from a touch of anglophobia they are no more nor less liberal than any other part of GB. (Northern Ireland is the conservative area of the UK, both the unionists and the republicans.) ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/10 "2015-05-18T23:15:01Z")
> [@Cestrian](#): > > Scotland is nationalist, apart from a touch of anglophobia they are no more nor less liberal than any other part of GB. I find that hard to believe given how the Labour Party dominated Scotland until the relatively recent nationalist upsurge. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/11 "2015-05-19T00:52:14Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > … they wanted to secede, to become “Scottinavia?” They would probably adopt the Scots-Gaelic name for their country, which I believe is “Alba”. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/12 "2015-05-19T01:40:11Z")
> [@Cestrian](#): > > Scotland is nationalist, apart from a touch of anglophobia they are no more nor less liberal than any other part of GB. > > (Northern Ireland is the conservative area of the UK, both the unionists and the republicans.) The nationalist (Republican) parties are on the left though, while most unionist or loyalist parties are conservative (except the PUP but they’re minor). So it’s mostly that people will vote contrary to their left/right alignment if the policies are right. It’s probably the same with the most left wing nationalist parties in Wales, Quebec, Basque country, etc. IIRC Northern Ireland attitudes are more conservative than in the Republic. That includes Catholics, although protestants, particularly the (Free) Presbyterians are more conservative by votes and attitudes. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2015, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-liberal-or-conservative-regions-cities-in-other-nations/720268/13 "2015-05-19T05:27:03Z")
> [@amarone](#): > > I find that hard to believe given how the Labour Party dominated Scotland until the relatively recent nationalist upsurge. Could be a case of “Southern Democrats”, though: if the right is associated with “the sassenach”, vote for Anybody Else.