Europe's 25 heaviest drinking nations and the UK doesn't even make the top 10 - full list

The 25 heaviest drinking nations in Europe have been named. Surprisingly for some, the UK does not even make the top ten.

11:03, Sat, Jun 29, 2024

A wine glass held over bottles of wine

The 25 heaviest drinking nations in Europe have been named (Image: Getty)

The 25 heaviest drinking nations in Europe have been named by The World Factbook, but surprisingly for some, the UK does not even make the top ten.

The Factbook (WFB) acts as a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for the use of US government officials. Its data is updated weekly.

The alcohol per capita entry (APC) records the amount consumed by persons aged 15 years and over in a calendar year, measured in litres of pure alcohol, according to the WFB.

It only takes into account, however, the consumption that is recorded from production, import, export and sales data, primarily derived from taxation. All data was established in 2019.

The APC is then broken down further into beer, wine, spirits and other subfields.

Front cover of the 2017 CIA World Factbook ca. 1 January 2017

The World Factbook acts as a reference for the CIA (Image: Getty)

In the UK, it is recommended to drink no more than 14 units of alcohol a week, the equivalent of six 175-millilitre glasses of wine, or six pints of four percent beer, according to the NHS.

Denmark, Switzerland, Cyprus, Croatia, and, most surprisingly, the UK - coming at at 21st - made up the lowest spots on the list respectively, meaning they consumed the lowest amount of APC. Denmark (9.16 litres of pure alcohol in total) and Switzerland (9.41) had the biggest leaning on wine, while Cyprus’s (9.59) largest subfield was spirits. Croatia (9.64) and the UK (9.80) both had the biggest leaning on beer with 4.75 and 3.53 litres respectively .

Montenegro (9.91), Slovakia (10.30), Portugal (10.37), Germany (10.56) and Belarus (10.57) made up the places from 20th to 16th. Montenegro’s largest subfield was beer, while Slovakia tied with 4.14 litres of beer and spirits. Portugal leaned most significantly on wine, at 6.04 litres. Germany, unsurprisingly, has the largest subfield of beer. Belarus had the biggest leaning on spirits.

Spain took 15th place with 10.72, with Hungary (10.79), Ireland (10.91), Romania (10.96) and Poland (10.96) completing the bottom 15 places. All five countries leaned most heavily on beer with 4.67 litres, Hungary with 3.96, Ireland with 4.92, Romania with 5.33 and Poland with an impressive 5.72, over half of the total litres of alcohol.

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Happy friends group drinking beer at brewery bar restaurant

The UK ranked only 21st, with the biggest subfield being beer (Image: Getty)

Andorra took 10th place with a heavy leaning on wine at 4.98 litres. Luxembourg took ninth place with exactly 11 litres and the biggest subfield of wine. Slovenia (11.05), Bulgaria (11.18) and France (11.44) took places eight to six respectively, with Bulgaria having the biggest subfield of spirits, while wine was the biggest subfield for Slovenia and, unsurprisingly, France, with a staggering 6.44 litres of their 11.44 total.

Making up the top five places were Estonia with 11.65 litres, Austria with 11.90, Lithuania with 11.93 and Czechia with 12.73. Estonia, Lithuania and Czechia leaned most heavily on spirits and it was beer in Austria, with 6.3 litres.

The heaviest drinking nation was given to Latvia, with a total of 12.90 litres of pure alcohol. The breakdown included 4.9 litres of beer, 1.7 litres of wine, 5.3 litres of spirits and 1 litre of other alcohols.