The Most Common Hogwarts House in Every Country and U.S. State

After all this time? Always. 

Since 1997, generations of readers from all across the world have been following the magical adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermione. First by page, and then, in 2001, the first of an eight-part film adaptation series hit the big screen grossing $974 million at the box office during its initial run. Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone (or Sorcerer’s Stone depending on your location) became the highest-grossing film released that year and the second-highest-grossing film ever at the time. Harry Potter quickly became a billion-dollar franchise.

And although the final installment of the Harry Potter films came out in 2011, with spin-offs since then including the Fantastic Beasts series and the best-selling play Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, Potterheads continue to want more from the Wizarding World. From visiting the sets IRL to writing their own fanfiction, millions of children and adults alike want to know everything there is to know about Harry and Hogwarts.

Enter Hogwarts Legacy. 2023 marks the release of an immersive, open-world action Role Play Game (RPG) set in the 1800s in the world first introduced in the Harry Potter books. The game allows players to experience Hogwarts in all its glory, exploring every nook and cranny, including the common rooms and each Hogwarts house.

This got the team at TheToyZone wondering, which is the most common Hogwarts house in every country?

Key Findings

• Slytherin is the most common house in 69 countries across the world.
• Ravenclaw and Slytherin tie as the most common house in 15 states each.
• The United States is made up of a majority of Gryffindors (40%).
• Though the UK has an almost equal split, Hufflepuff is the majority household (27%).
• Canada is home to a higher proportion of Ravenclaws (28%) than any other house.
• Argentina’s ruling house, with a 31% majority, is Slytherin.

How We Conducted This Study

We assigned the five main personality types (used in psychology) to Hogwarts Houses based on research undertaken by the University of California, which analyzed people who had completed the official Pottermore Sorting Hat quiz. We then analyzed 51,246 Twitter profiles from users across the globe, using tools that detect these personality types to reveal the most common houses from each country.

Click here to see the image in full size

By matching the five main personality types to houses, we determined the split of people by country or state that would be sorted into each house. We analyzed over 4.87 million Tweets using an API language tool that detects the presence of the Big Five traits in texts. We determined the house based on the traits users displayed the highest percentage of when Tweeting. Read on to find out where to find the most members of each house.

The Most Common Hogwarts House in Every Country

Though having initially been rejected by twelve publishers before being picked up by Bloomsbury, the Harry Potter books have sold over 500 million copies worldwide and have been translated into more than 80 different languages. But which is the most common Hogwarts house across the world?

Using an API tool that scans texts for evidence of the “Big Five” traits, we analyzed 4.8M tweets to “sort” Twitter users into houses and reveal the dominant house in each country.

Click here to see the image in full size

Slytherin is the most common house in 69 countries across the world, including Argentina, France, Spain and New Zealand. People belonging to this house are known for being ambitious, cunning, determined, proud and resourceful. Alums include the Malfoys and Tom Riddle. “There’s not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin, ”…yet Severus Snape turns out to be one of the good guys, and Harry Potter himself was placed in Gryffindor because he asked not to be sorted into Slytherin.

Ravenclaw is the second most common house of all, dominating in 43 countries (including Canada), Hufflepuff is the most common in 34 countries (including the UK) and Gryffindor is the most common in the fewest countries (30 countries, including the U.S.).

The Most Common Hogwarts House in Every State

Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is America’s equivalent of Hogwarts. The school appears in the Fantastic Beasts franchise and has its own sorting ceremony and schoolhouses.

But when the kind and trustworthy Hagrid insists that Hogwarts is the finest school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, nothing quite beats knowing which Hogwarts house you most belong to. If nothing else, to help decide which color merchandise to buy.

We analyzed Tweets for displays of certain traits, which were matched with one of the “Big Five” personality types, to find the most common house in every state.

Click here to see the image in full size

Ravenclaw is known for housing those who are creative, intelligent, witty and wise. Alums include Cho Chang, Gilderoy Lockhart and Luna Lovegood. And many have debated over the years why Hermione, the brightest witch of her age, wasn’t sorted into Ravenclaw. It is the most common house in 15 states, including California, Illinois and Kentucky. Slytherin also comes up top in 15 states, including Alabama, Ohio and Michigan.

Gryffindor follows closely as the top in 14 states (including Hawaii, New York and Utah), and Hufflepuff is the most common house in just six states, which include Arkansas and Rhode Island.

The Split of Hogwarts Houses in Major Countries

Hogwarts was founded at some point in the 10th Century by four of the greatest witches and wizards that ever lived; Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. We analyzed tweets to see where in the world each of the four houses dominates based on the skills and traits they display the most when Tweeting.

Click here to see the image in full size

Home to the famous trio Harry, Ron and Hermione (and many other notable witches and wizards, including Professor McGonagall, the Potters, the Weasleys, Sirius Black and Neville Longbottom), Gryffindor house represents bravery, courage and chivalry. Of all the major countries, the United States has the highest majority of Gryffindors (40%).

Known for being “just and loyal,” Hufflepuff is the most common house in The UK (27%), which otherwise has an almost equal split. Alums for this house include Cedric Diggory, Newt Scamander and Nymphodora Tonks. Ravenclaw is the dominating house in Canada (28%), while Argentina’s ruling house is Slytherin (31%).

The Split of Hogwarts Houses By State

Despite being set in the UK, being written by a British author and starring an entirely British cast, the U.S. still loves Harry Potter. Statista reports that there was a significant increase in the number of visitors to Universal Orlando after adding ‘The Wizarding World of Harry Potter’ to the theme park. Figures rose from under five million in the year preceding its opening to over seven and a half million in the following year. While we know folks flock to the state of Florida to visit the magical world, what we don’t know is the split of Hogwarts houses in that state. Or do we…?

Click here to see the image in full size

Gryffindor is the ruling house in Louisiana (46%), while Hufflepuffs are the most common in New Hampshire (37%). With 32% belonging in Ravenclaw, it is the dominating house for those in Pennsylvania, and almost half (49%) of those in Wyoming are in Slytherin.

If You Don’t Ask, You Don’t Get

While many of the franchise’s core characters reside in Gryffindor or Slytherin, often seen as polar opposites and a strong case for good vs. evil, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw houses are just as integral to the plot.

As avid Potter fans will know, the Sorting ceremony can be tricky and take a while if a student possesses traits from several houses. And on occasion, the Sorting Hat may have got it wrong (Peter Pettigrew definitely was a snake, not a lion).

Actor Rupert Grint who plays Ron Weasley, the loyal and faithful sidekick, was sorted into Hufflepuff. And Tom Felton, who plays Harry’s nemesis Draco Malfoy, Tweeted that he, in fact, was sorted into Gryffindor.

But remember, whether you’re analyzing Tweets just like we did or taking the Pottermore test yourself, you can always ask to be placed elsewhere. After all, Dumbledore once said: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

Methodology

We based this study on research undertaken by the University of California and published in their paper, The Science Behind the Magic? The Relation of the Harry Potter “Sorting Hat Quiz” to Personality and Human Values. This research explores the link between personality types and the Hogwarts Houses individuals are sorted into (as defined by the Pottermore Sorting Hat on the Wizarding World website). In short, multiple psychology studies (the most notable can be found here) have found that each of the “Big Five” personality types expresses higher values in people depending on the house:

 – Gryffindor: High on Extraversion.

 – Hufflepuff: High on Conscientiousness and Agreeableness.

 – Ravenclaw: High on Openness.

 – Slytherin: High on Neuroticism

For more detail on what each trait means, see here.

With this in mind, we collected a sample of tweeters from every country and U.S. state worldwide and analyzed their entire Twitter history using a language API that detects the presence of the Big Five traits. This enabled us to assign a house to each tweeter based on the personality types they scored highly in. From there, we could calculate the split of each Hogwarts house for every country and state.

• Total Users Analyzed: 51,246

• Total Tweets Analyzed: 4.87M