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What people Googled during the Paris attacks, in one graphic

Google Trends

"Why Paris?"

Across the world, that was among the most commonly Googled questions after the Paris attacks on November 13. But in Paris, the queries were different — more practical.

For example, as the world asked, "Why Paris?" Parisians wanted to know, "What is a state of emergency?"

This Google News Lab graphic, which relies on Google Trend data, shows how the people in various world cities searched for the Paris attacks. To me, the most striking questions are the ones unique to each city. In Madrid — a day's drive from Paris — people were searching for, "How to put the France flag up on Facebook." In Tokyo, people wanted to know if the Paris attacks were still going on. And worldwide, among the most common searches was: "What is ISIS?"

But in Paris, one of the unique questions was, "What is national mourning?"

Check out the graphic here:



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