Electoral Geographic splits in countries

[Sol]

I've always found it interesting how different countries have different political divides. In the U.S., it's (generally speaking) South/Interior West vs. everything else, but what is it in other countries?

[Brittain33]

Poland has a dramatic gap between territory that was in pre-1939 Poland and that which was annexed from Germany after 1945.

[Del Tachi]

There's the whole highland vs. lowland thing going on in the UK. 

[SNJ1985]

In Portugal, the North is more conservative than the rest of the country.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

In Sweden it's the left-wing North vs. the right-wing South.   

[YL]

Poland has a dramatic gap between territory that was in pre-1939 Poland and that which was annexed from Germany after 1945.

I thought it was more the pre-WW1 borders: areas which were in the German Empire voting for Civic Platform, and areas which were in the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires voting for Law & Justice.

[Bacon King]

Referenced above:

[Bacon King]

Here's a few that are relevant to current events:

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The nature of Japanese rightism has a sharp urban-rural divide, being considerably more virulent in the cities. The historically weak Japanese left also tends to hold up slightly better at its lowest ebbs in the northeast and in the Kyoto area than elsewhere in the country.

Italy has a 'red center' in Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, Umbria, and depending on the election the Marches, Liguria, and some other surrounding areas, with the North and the South both being more right-wing but for different reasons.

[Bacon King]

Geocurrents has a lot of great pages giving explanations for the cultural/linguistic/ethnic/religious/etc divides that underly political divides. This is my favorite so far:





A candidate for every language!

[SNJ1985]

An obvious case would be Belgium, with the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders pitted against the French-speaking region of Wallonia.

[Tender Branson]

AUT (interactive maps with election results by each party and district back to 1994):

http://orf.at/wahl/nr13/daten/#analyse-ab-1994

Heavy ÖVP-areas: Vorarlberg and Tirol, Salzburg-suburbs, the periphery of Upper Austria and Lower Austria, Eastern Styria, Eisenstadt and the City of Vienna.

Heavy SPÖ-areas: Vienna north to the Danube and Simmering/Favoriten (increasingly being robbed by the FPÖ). Burgenland and Carinthia (historically, with interruptions of strong FPÖ showings). Upper Styria (mining and heavy industry). Gmunden (Upper Austria) due to retirement homes of old people, Linz and suburbs (steel workers).

Heavy FPÖ-areas: Generally in Styria and Carinthia and the Ried/Braunau/Wels areas of Upper Austria. Plus the above-mentioned worker-districts in Vienna (10./11./21./22.)

Heavy Green areas: Big and university cities and it's suburbs basically.

Heavy NEOS areas: The same as for Greens, plus Vorarlberg (leader bonus).

Heavy TS areas (for historical purposes): Southern Styria around Graz (car-cluster), south-east of Vienna.

BZÖ (for historical purposes): Carinthia

...

2013 federal election maps:

By district



By town/city



SPÖ: red
ÖVP: black
FPÖ: blue
Greens: green
NEOS: pink
BZÖ: orange

[SNJ1985]

AUT (interactive maps with election results by each party and district back to 1994):

http://orf.at/wahl/nr13/daten/#analyse-ab-1994

That's a great website. Here's one with lots of maps of Swiss electoral results:

http://www.wahlatlas.info/

[King of Kensington]

In Canada, region has always been the main cleavage in politics and partisan loyalties can shift very quickly.  Right now it's split Quebec (NDP) vs. English Canada (Conservative) but that's because the Liberals really tanked in 2011. 

There's also an east-west split with the Liberals being much stronger in Eastern Canada than Western Canada.  This goes back to the 1960s.  It was most evident in 1980 when Pierre Trudeau made a comeback with a majority but only won 2 seats in Western Canada!

In other countries:  Italy seems to be defined by a prosperous and economically conservative north, the "red belt" in the center and a socially conservative and clientalist south.

The UK - the Tories are a party of southern England.  Labour is stronger in northern England and Scotland.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

In Bolivia, the wealthier white/mestizo east is more conservative than the Andean west and is very opposed to Evo Morales to the point that there was a separatist movement that gained traction in the late 2000s.

[jaichind]

Taiwan Province of the Republic of China

Pan-Greens (DPP, TSU) are strong Southwest and Yilan County in the Northeast and Pan-Blues are stronger elsewhere with Central Taiwan Province being the battleground between the two blocs.  Another way to say it is advanced counties are Pan-Blue, backward counties are Pan-Green with the exception of backward counties with large Taiwanese Aborigines being Pan-Blue.

2008 Prez election

[jaichind]

ROK

Southwest and to some extent Greater Soeul are center-left and rest are center-right.

Park only won 51.5 vs 48 but that does not seem obvious on the map.  The reason is on the Southwest part of ROK or Jeolla pretty much voted 90-10 in favor of Moon and almost wiped out the leads that Park had elsewhere.

2012 ROK election



Some of this is rooted in history with the Kindgon of Baekje

[Knives]

WA and QLD are more rightwing than the rest of the country.

[H. Ross Peron]

In South Africa, the ANC is dominant everywhere except in the DA stronghold of the Western Cape.