Where Do All the Cigar Aficionados and Tobacco Smokers Live?

For the cigar industry, the past fifteen years has been the best
of times--and the worst of times.

On the one hand, the 1990s saw the renaissance of cigar smoking
in the United States after decades in which competition from
cigars, an aging customer base of cigar aficionados, and lack of
interest in cigars among younger smokers all took their toll on
the industry. This trend suddenly, inexplicably reversed itself
in the fourth quarter of 1992, and by 1996, the industry was
seeing 36 percent first-quarter growth.

But what ironic timing! The Clinton years also saw a
high-profile class-action suit against cigarette companies,
controversies over cigarette advertising to minors, and a
general decline in the number of new tobacco users. More
importantly, those who did continue to smoke, or who took up the
habit for the first time, found themselves with a vanishing
habitat. More and more businesses, towns, even entire states
imposed restrictions on smoking.

That trend has continued, and Europe's getting in on the act.
England recently enacted a far-reaching smoking ban that some
anti-smoking activists consider a model for future efforts in
this country (though some consider that it infringes too far on
civil liberties). In any case, you might be wondering, if you're
a cigar aficionado, whether there are other places you could
visit where your cigar indulgence is, well, a little more widely
understood.

You're in luck--maybe. The United States, according to the
Penguin State of the World Atlas, counts twenty-four percent of
its adult population as tobacco users. There are plenty of other
countries where that number is significantly higher.

You could start with Western Europe. Even the United Kingdom,
with that strict smoking ban, has a slightly higher rate of
adult tobacco users (just over twenty-six percent), while in
Germany, Hungary and France, respectively, thirty-five,
thirty-five and thirty-four percent of adults use tobacco in
some form. (Apparently, all those French movie characters
weren't just using their little Gaulouises for emphasis.) The
Netherlands, Spain, Luxembourg, and Switzerland lag just behind,
with around thirty-three percent, ahead of thirty-one percenters
Ireland and Norway, while the rest of Western Europe is at
thirty percent or below.

Go a little further East, and things get even more promising. In
Greece thirty-eight percent of adults will potentially be
willing to join you for your after-dinner stogie (if you ask
nicely anyway), as will thirty-six percent of adult Macedonians,
thirty-four percent of adult Poles. More impressively, so will
forty-two percent of Slovakians and a whopping forty-three
percent of Romanians. Turkey isn't officially part of Europe
(due to a recent EU decision), but forty-four percent of its
adults use tobacco.

Smoking is popular in Russia and former Soviet client states:
thirty-nine percent of Albanians, thirty-seven percent of
Georgians and Kyrgyzstanis, thirty-six percent of Russians and
Bulgarians, thirty-five percent of Ukrainians, thirty-two
percent of Estonians, thirty-one percent of Latvians, Meanwhile,
Bosnia-Herzogovina and Yugoslavia have some of the highest
tobacco-use rates in the world, at forty-seven and forty-eight
percent respectively. Thirty-three percent of Kazakhstan's
citizens smoke, but for goodness sake, they don't want to see
your Borat imitation.

Parts of the Middle East are friendly--well, to smoking, anyway.
Forty-four percent of Yemenis smoke, as do forty percent of
adults in Lebanon and thirty-seven percent of adults in Benin.
Other parts of the region would prefer you keep it unlit,
please--Lybia, with four percent, has the lowest smoking rates
in the world, just ahead of Senegal (just over four and a half
percent), Haiti and the United Arab Emirates (nine percent and
change).

Even farther east, you might find some sympathetic souls in
Mongolia (forty-seven percent), Laos (thirty-eight percent),
Cambodia (thirty-seven percent), South Korea (thirty-five
percent), and Japan (thirty-three percent). Going south a bit,
we find thirty-eight percent of adult Bangladeshis and Nepalese
using tobacco. Over by Indonesia (thirty-one percent), there's
Papua New Guinea (thirty-seven percent). You might also try
spending some time in Namibia (fifty percent), Kenya (forty-nine
percent), Cameroon (thirty-five percent), Tunisia and Uganda
(thirty-four percent).

Or stay in this hemisphere, but go south--to the region where
much of the world's best tobacco is grown. Try Venezuela or
Cuba--all those pictures of Chavez and Castro chomping cigars
together aren't just about image, as the countries have forty
and thirty-seven percent adult smokers respectively. Argentina
(forty percent), Panama (thirty-eight percent), Mexico
(thirty-four percent), and Brazil (thirty-three percent) also
offer potential smokers' paradises.

By now you're probably wondering who has the highest smoking
rates in the world. That would be Guinea, with fifty-one percent
of its adults using tobacco. You might want to go book that
ticket--especially if you can find an airline that'll let you
smoke.

About the author:
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