2016 has been a dramatic year. Brexit, Trump, massive hacks, new surveillance laws, fake news, bum balloon crashes, iPhones without headphone jacks, and Star Wars are just a few of the high and low-lights.
All of these have captured the public imagination in the UK, but none of them managed to be the highest trending Google search result of the year. Across the entire country, England's abysmal Euro 2016 appearance took that title.
As is customary, the search giant has published its annual highest trending searches across the UK for the previous 12 months and it appears that Brits have a diverse range of queries they put to Google.
Read more: Google's AI just created its own universal 'language'
When starting Google search queries with 'What is', the most common question across London, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and Bradford was: 'What is Pokémon Go?' While, Belfast wanted to know that the internet is, Cardiff: 'Brexit', and Sheffield: 'What is Article 50?'
When asking Google 'How to', most major cities again wanted to know how to play the augmented reality Pokémon game. Leeds and Cardiff were most concerned with 'How to work out percentages', those living in Bradford wanted to know how to 'age lace', Sheffield: 'How to pluck your eyebrows', Liverpool and Bradford: 'How to lose weight fast', and bucking the trend, those in Manchester sought 'How to make pancakes'.
The stats from Google give a glimpse into how people use the internet and search on a daily basis. These include insecurities such as 'how to lose wrinkles on forehead' and 'how to get rid of bags under your eyes' among the top beauty questions asked.
'Where is Brussels?' and 'where is my polling station?' came top of the UK's location-based queries, while Donald Trump was the most Googled politician, edging out Theresa May.
For tech products, searches for the iPhone beat competition from the Samsung Galaxy S7 (not the one that caught on fire) and the Google Pixel. Sky Q, Amazon Echo, Nintendo, Amazon Fire TV and PlayStation VR were also included in the highest trending searches for devices.
Here's a breakdown of how the UK searched.
\1. Euro2016 \2. Pokémon Go \3. David Bowie \4. Donald Trump \5. Prince \6. EU referendum \7. Alan Rickman \8. Olympics \9. US election \10. Deadpool
\1. how to play pokemon go \2. how to lose weight well \3. how to stay young \4. how to go live on Facebook \5. how to vote for EU referendum \6. how to get an Irish passport \7. how to make slime \8. how to appear funny \9. how to apply for British citizenship \10. how to accept myself for who I am
\1. iPhone \2. Samsung Galaxy S7 \3. Google Pixel \4. Sky Q \5. Amazon Echo \6. Nintendo \7. Amazon Fire TV \8. Fitbit Blaze \9. Playstation VR \10. iPad Pro
\1. Deadpool \2. Suicide Squad \3. The Revenant \4. Batman vs Superman \5. Captain America Civil War \6. 10 Cloverfield Lane \7. London Has Fallen \8. The Girl on the Train \9. The Big Short \10. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
\1. Brexit \2. US election \3. Hurricane Matthew \4. Brussels (attack) \5. Zika virus \6. clowns \7. Harambe \8. Toblerone \9. BHS sale \10. Nice attack
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
