The Most Used Emoji on Twitter in Every Country Mapped

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Some say the emoji is a new universal language: a “pop Esperanto” worldwide. But different countries and cultures have their own preferred emojis, often with varying meanings.

Words are Crossword-Solver’s business, so they wanted to learn more about this booming form of communication that neglects to use words at all.

The team analyzed geotagged 9 million tweets to find each country’s favorite emoji. And they made maps of their results… because sometimes it helps to visualize what you’re trying to say.

Methodology

Crossword-Solver used the Twitter API to retrieve 9 million geotagged tweets. Based on this sample, they defined the most used emoji worldwide and in certain countries.

The maximum number of tweets from the same account was limited to 1 per day to exclude bots. The team used “unique appearances” to calculate the frequency of an emoji in the sample. This means that, for tweets that have the same emoji more than once, they only counted the first occurrence towards the total usage of that emoji.

For the states of the U.S., Crossword-Solver selected the most used emoji above the national average (sum of all states).

No data was available for: Bahrain, Cape Verde, Comoros, Eritrea, Grenada, Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (the Federated States of), Monaco, Palestine, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa,
South Sudan, or Tuvalu.

The data was retrieved during the last two weeks of February 2022.

The Most Used Emoji in the World

There are over 3,000 emojis in usage, but some appear far more often than others. The crossword-Solver team analyzed 9 million geotagged tweets to see which emoji each country uses the most.

Face with tears of joy ? is the most common emoji in 75 nations. According to the Unicode Consortium, it was the first emoji chosen as the Oxford Word of the Year and accounted for over 5% of all sent emojis in 2021.

North America

North America is in tears… of laughter. The most common top emoji in the continent is face with tears of joy ?, which tops ten regional countries, including the United States. But five nations express humor more intensely with the rolling on the floor laughing emoji ?.

Only Antigua and Barbuda favors tears of sadness?. The Caribbean islanders use the loudly crying face ? more than other emojis. Globally, ? was the most popular emoji on Twitter in the first nine months of the pandemic, according to Emojipedia.

The Most Popular Emoji in the United States

The United States’ most common emoji has been the world’s #1 for ten years: face with tears of joy ?. But the U.S. is number two, a newer entry ?.

Until recently, Twitter users shared the green square emoji as a pretty bullet point or flag for environmental awareness. Then, everyone started sharing the colored grids of their Wordle results, and the green square jumped into America’s top ten – along with the yellow ? and white ⬜ squares. Below is the chart of the top 10 most used emojis in the United States.

The most used emoji in every state is inevitably the nation’s favorite, the face with tears of joy emoji ?, but what takes place if we look at which emoji is used most above the national average in each U.S. state?

Three states favor an unusual emoji of their own; Idaho uses folded hands ? in 0.54% of tweets, making it the ‘gratitude state.’

Wyoming likes the smiling face with heart-eyes ?, while New Hampshire is the snowflake state ❄️ – because of the weather rather than insults about political sensitivity. The map below shows the most uniquely popular emoji in every U.S. state.

The Most Popular Emoji in Canada

Canada is a nation filled with laughter and love – or at least that’s what we can see from its most used emojis. The face with tears of joy ?, the red heart ❤️ emoji, and the rolling on the floor laughing ? take the top three spots, with the former only being favored 39 more times than the latter. The country also exhibits patriarchal pride, with the Canada flag placing sixth.

South America

Literally half of all South American countries use the red heart ❤️ more than any other emoji. Rolling on the floor laughing ? is the only other emoji to be top in multiple South American states.

Venezuela is one of just three countries worldwide with folded hands ? as its most used emoji. It is often used alongside the #PrayForVenezuela hashtag because of the ongoing political and economic crises.

Europe

The red heart ❤️ is the most common emoji in 18 European nations. Data analyst Hamdan Azhar discovered that ❤️ is also the most popular emoji to accompany the #ramadan hashtag in English, German, Spanish, and Turkish tweets.

The world’s most popular emoji, face with tears of joy ?, is top in 14 European countries. Otherwise, every country emotes with its own national flag -except for Poland, where the Ukraine flag is used to show solidarity (data for this study were retrieved during the last weeks of February 2022 as Russia invaded Ukraine).

The Most Used Emojis in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom’s top two emojis match the global top two in reverse order. But the fifth-placed blue heart ? is more UK-centric. It took off as a symbol of support for the National Health Service (NHS) during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Alongside Wordle-themed emojis ??⬜, the eighth-placed flag of Ukraine shows how topical emoji use can be – the data was retrieved in February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Africa

Africa overwhelmingly favors the face with tears of joy emoji ? , which is the most used in 37 African nations. The red heart ❤️ tops just three countries, but is Africa’s second most common emoji.

The remaining ten countries with available data each tweet their respective national flag more than any other emoji. Not everybody gets it right, though. South Africa’s Minister of Transport was widely mocked after tweeting the Gambian flag rather than his own when a South African swimmer took Olympic gold.

The Middle East and Central Asia

The world’s top two emojis tie for top place in this region. Seven countries each use the face with tears of joy ? and a red heart ❤️ more than any other emoji.

But Kuwait and Saudi Arabia each have a unique number one. Kuwait is the round pushpin ? used to show location. Saudi Arabians use the white heart ? as a spiritual alternative to the red heart ❤️, which may be interpreted as a “harassment offense” under Saudi law.

Asia and Oceania

The red heart ❤️ is used more than any other emoji in seven of this region’s nations. However, 12 countries have their respective national flags as their most common. Laos favors the smiling face with hearts ?, which shows love, affection, or feelings of warm happiness.

Emoji culture was born in Japan, and there are emojis for Mount Fuji, sushi, and sake, among other Japanese symbols. However, the Japanese use the sparkles ✨ emoji more than any other.

The Most Used Emojis in Australia

Australia joins 74 other nations that love to use the face with tears of joy emoji ?. Following closely in second place is the red heart ❤️ which was approved as part of the Unicode 1.1 standard in 1993. According to Dictionary.com, it expresses gratitude, love, happiness, hope, or even flirtatiousness. The Wordle-themed colored squares also appear as the 3rd, 4th, and 8th most used emojis.

Key Findings

● Most nations are either laughing or loving as face with tears of joy ? and red heart ❤️ are the first and second most used emojis worldwide.
● Face with tears of joy ? is the most typical emoji in 75 nations.
● Wordle-themed emojis ? ? ⬜ find their way into the top ten most-used emojis in the United States and the United Kingdom.
● Emojis are not a universal language. In China, the clapping hands emoji? suggests “making love,” while sending thumbs up? to a Greek may cause offense.