Major countries where there is no urban/rural/suburban divide in voting patterns

[Matty]

In other words, the entire country is purple? (American political term for purple)

For example, somebody wins the election 52-48

A breakdown of the vote shows he/she won cities 52-48, rural areas 52-48, suburbs 52-48

Is there a country like this?

[Former President tack50]

In other words, the entire country is purple? (American political term for purple)

For example, somebody wins the election 52-48

A breakdown of the vote shows he/she won cities 52-48, rural areas 52-48, suburbs 52-48

Is there a country like this?

Some parts of Spain would probably qualify.

Aragon in particular comes to mind, which has a large city (Zaragoza) and then tons of rural areas, including areas with population density comparable to Lapland. Not only that, but within Aragon both the most left wing province (Huesca) and the most right wing one (Teruel) are both very rural.

Here are the 2019 results for example:

Aragon at large

PSOE: 32.7%
Cs: 21.2%
PP: 19.5%
Podemos: 14.0%
Vox: 12.6%

Zaragoza city (50.8% of the region's population)

PSOE: 31.6%
Cs: 22.3%
PP: 17.8%
Podemos: 15.4%
Vox: 13.0%

Rural Aragon

PSOE: 34.0%
Cs: 20.0%
PP: 21.4%
Podemos: 12.4%
Vox: 12.2%

Of course, parties still over or underperform in certain areas, but the difference isn't huge and is almost always within 3 points or so.

Spain at large may or may not depending on your definition though, as in the north (Galicia for example) you have a US style division (urban areas left wing; rural areas right wing) while in the South that is reversed (left wing rurals and right wing cities). So for the country at large it might be somewhat accurate as you can't generalize, but go to a certain region and that may or may not hold true

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

There are a few countries where there isn't so much a urban-rural divide as regional divide. Korea is a good example: Jeolla province in the South West is a uniform bastion for the left (if you can call the Korean liberals "left") from its biggest city Gwangju to rural hinterlands, while Gyeongsang is the conservative heartland of the country (partially because Park was from there and favoured his home province in spending) traditionally giving massive numbers to the Hannara Party. (The largest city, Seoul, is essentially a swing region.)

[Joe Republic]

At first glance at an election map, Sweden appears to have the opposite effect, with an ocean of red everywhere and a pocket of blue in Stockholm.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

At first glance at an election map, Sweden appears to have the opposite effect, with an ocean of red everywhere and a pocket of blue in Stockholm.

Sure at a first glance at a map it might look like that but if you're familiar with Swedish geography and voting patterns it becomes pretty clear it's not actually true.

The North, which is really vast and sparsely populated, is not as rural as it looks. In Norbotten, which is the most left-wing constituency in Sweden, 55% of the population live in cities/towns with more than 15 000 inhabitants. Compare that with the more southern constituency of Jönköping, the bastion of Swedish conservatism, where only 35% of the population live in cities/towns with more than 15 000 inhabitants.    

In the North, both the cities and the rural areas are left-wing. As a matter of fact, the few places up there where the right does ok are rural places like Åre, Bjurholm or Storuman.

Stockholm has some central areas that are really right-wing, like Östermalm, but also areas that are very left-wing, like Kista. In Stockholm City (the municipality) 45,3% voted for the centre-left in 2018, compared to 41,1% in the country as a whole and of course Gothenburg and Malmö are strong left-wing centers due to their industrial history and high levels of immigrants in the last few decades.

The rural-urban divide is not as big here as in the US, or even Denmark, but exists.

If you look at the two maps below, they're showing the election results in the southern half of the country (in which 85% of the population lives) in the general elections of 1985 and 2006. The picture with-out the North looks a lot more like any other European country. Rural areas are mostly voting for the centre-right, cities are mostly voting for the centre-left, the suburbia around the major cities are centre-right.






  

[Tender Branson]

Certainly not here ...

Austria mirrors the US in those patterns: strongly conservative/populist rural areas vs. strongly left/liberal urban areas, with the suburbs being „purple“.

[Oryxslayer]

I'm going to say Spain and Israel. Both countries have urban rural divides, but in different parts of the county the divide goes in different directions. So when averaged out, its close to equal.

Spain's conservatives have the rural North/Northwest around Castile La Mancha/Castille Leon but also Madrid. The Socialists meanwhile have the rural south and Barcelona. And thats only at the county level, lowering our view down to the community level finds many medium sized cities on the right.

Israel on the other hand is polarized based on the various communities living in the county. So the associated parties to the left win In Tel Aviv and her non-Haradi environs along with the Kibbutz rurals. The Right does well in Jerusalem, some smaller cities, and the non-Kibbutz rurals - particularly those Settled in the West Bank.

[Oryxslayer]

At first glance at an election map, Sweden appears to have the opposite effect, with an ocean of red everywhere and a pocket of blue in Stockholm.

Sure at a first glance at a map it might look like that but if you're familiar with Swedish geography and voting patterns it becomes pretty clear it's not actually true.

The North, which is really vast and sparsely populated, is not as rural as it looks. In Norbotten, which is the most left-wing constituency in Sweden, 55% of the population live in cities/towns with more than 15 000 inhabitants. Compare that with the more southern constituency of Jönköping, the bastion of Swedish conservatism, where only 35% of the population live in cities/towns with more than 15 000 inhabitants.    

In the North, both the cities and the rural areas are left-wing. As a matter of fact, the few places up there where the right does ok are rural places like Åre, Bjurholm or Storuman.

Stockholm has some central areas that are really right-wing, like Östermalm, but also areas that are very left-wing, like Kista. In Stockholm City (the municipality) 45,3% voted for the centre-left in 2018, compared to 41,1% in the country as a whole and of course Gothenburg and Malmö are strong left-wing centers due to their industrial history and high levels of immigrants in the last few decades.

The rural-urban divide is not as big here as in the US, or even Denmark, but exists.

If you look at the two maps below, they're showing the election results in the southern half of the country (in which 85% of the population lives) in the general elections of 1985 and 2006. The picture with-out the North looks a lot more like any other European country. Rural areas are mostly voting for the centre-right, cities are mostly voting for the centre-left, the suburbia around the major cities are centre-right.


  

To further your point, heres a map I made a while back of the 2018 election by block. We see that all the towns in the more rural south are lock-step for the right, and would be more so if I counted SD as part of that definition. 2018 saw increasing urban rural divide in Sweden as a mattter of fact. The only places S gained vote share from 2014 were in Gothenburg, Uppsala, along with Stockholm and a few neighboring communities. V gained most from the big urban areas. Center, though not a left party but a liberal one, picked up massive numbers of votes from urban areas and their bedroom communities, even though they are traditionally a farmers party. The urban-rural divide is a global trend, only resisted when there are significant opposing headwinds from local political polarization.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Swedish case is why we always need to be careful with definitions: it isn't as if farmers have ever voted en masse for the SAP. And it just so turns out that all those clusters of small towns with habitually high levels of SAP support are generally industrial towns: a curiosity of Swedish industrialisation was that it was based around small towns and away from the capital to an unusual extent.

As a general observation - and it's so general that there are a billion exceptions - in an advanced industrial or post-industrial/service economy, then parties of the 'left' (at least when aggregated) will generally poll better in urban centres than in the countryside, and the same will generally be true in reverse for parties of the 'right'.* If this is not the case, then it is usually a sign that major cultural (usually confessional or sectarian) or ethnic factors are at play: France and Italy have often been standout examples here. Though it's worth noting that French and Italian voting patterns are not really any more detached from the norm in this regard than the really extreme patterns that have recently emerged in the United States. But then those extreme patterns, they too reflect cultural polarisation, of a newer sort.

Now if we're talking postcommunist or Third World countries... well there are patterns, observable patterns, but oh so different...

_{*Of course there are... paradoxes here. In some rural areas in Europe the 'modernisation', and indeed relative 'urbanisation', of the countryside since about 1950 has led to a steep rightwards movement over time, due to the exodus of labouring families (this a result of the mechanisation of agriculture) to towns and cities and their replacement with middle class commuters. In turn, of course, those middle class commuters moving out of historic bourgeois districts in the cities and towns in question has invariably produced pretty sharp electoral movement in those places as well, particularly if located near universities.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Oh and it's often important, really important, not to get too fixated on municipal boundaries, particularly when looking at this issue over a long period of time!

[H. Ross Peron]

There are a few countries where there isn't so much a urban-rural divide as regional divide. Korea is a good example: Jeolla province in the South West is a uniform bastion for the left (if you can call the Korean liberals "left") from its biggest city Gwangju to rural hinterlands, while Gyeongsang is the conservative heartland of the country (partially because Park was from there and favoured his home province in spending) traditionally giving massive numbers to the Hannara Party. (The largest city, Seoul, is essentially a swing region.)

I wouldn't call Seoul itself a swing region (as opposed to Gyonggi Province surrounding the capital) given it has voted for the left in every Presidential election since 1960 with the exception of 2007 when the conservative candidate (Lee Myung Bak) was the former mayor of Seoul and won by a 2 to 1 margin over the liberal candidate (there were also various splinter parties running). This is partially because migrants to Seoul were disproportionately from Jeolla Province (hence in the 4-way Presidential race of 1987 Kim Dae Jung won Seoul along with his native Jeolla), one factor of which was due to Jeolla's relative underdevelopment whereas Gyeongsang's rural residents could migrate to the booming industrial cities of their own province.

I might also add that South Korea's regional polarization only emerged in the late 1960s/early 70s. Prior to that, South Korea had more of a standard rural/urban divide with Seoul being the bastion of the liberal opposition party while rural areas favoured the ruling (Syngman Rhee's Liberal then Park's Democratic Republican) parties. There are some further historical ironies if one digs further such as that Daegu/North Gyeongsang which today is the most conservative area of South Korea used to be known as "the Moscow of Chosen" and backed socialist Cho Bong-Am in the 1958 Presidential race, who was probably the strongest genuinely "left" politician in Korean politics.

[smoltchanov]

Well, before Putin's "vertical of power" Russia was  a sort o hybrid USA/Europe with some notable differences - liberal "pro-West" big cities (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, and so on), and much more socially conservative (but, frequently, "left" on economy, read - our "nonreformed" Communists) smaller cities and rural areas. Right now - a sort of uniformization exists, though big cities are still more liberal, electing substantial number of persons from "Yabloko" (essentially - social-democratic party under Russian conditions) and some other...