You might expect neighbours to write similar emergency lists: the Nordics together, the Baltics together, the Benelux together. We compared every pair of the 24 national guides on our 53-item checklist. Geography explains surprisingly little.
How we measured it
For each pair of countries we took every item that at least one of them lists, and counted the share that both list. Two identical lists score 100%, two lists with nothing in common score 0%. Across all 276 pairs the typical overlap is about half.
Fig. 1 · Interactive network
Lines join guides that share at least 60% of their items
What stands out
- The closest pair is Sweden and Slovakia, at 72%: of the 39 items either lists, both list 28. Two guides a thousand kilometres apart, both written for crisis and war.
- Latvia and Czechia (70%) and Austria and Slovenia (70%) come next. Austria and Slovenia are neighbours, but Latvia and Czechia are not.
- France's nearest match is Lithuania (68%), not Belgium or Luxembourg. Germany's is Sweden.
- The Nordics don't form a bloc. Finland and Denmark share 59%, while Sweden sits closer to Central Europe.
- Cyprus stands apart, sharing a third of its items with the average guide, and Portugal is next. Both lists are short and built for one scenario: a grab bag in Cyprus, earthquakes in Portugal.
Fig. 2 · Every pair
How much each pair of national lists overlaps
Why it matters
The pattern points to purpose rather than place. Long guides written with crisis and war in mind, such as Sweden's, Slovakia's, Czechia's and Latvia's, resemble each other, while short guides written around a single hazard sit at the edge. If your own country's list is short, its closest long match is a good place to look for what to add. Our checklist does that for you, by combining all 24.
More from this series: Europe's emergency lists in charts.