As December is moving on, every company under the sun is releasing their own takes on a year in review. Some versions of these have probably existed ever since humankind started writing history, but Spotify really popularized it with its Spotify Wrapped format, which it only released a few days ago for 2022. Google is also at it with its Year in Search 2022, and for the first time, it is possible to search for the most popular queries by region in the US.

Google’s Year in Review always gives us a good opportunity to slow down and look at the topics that moved us in the year that’s about to pass, and this is no different this time around. It may already be a fad at this point, but the surprise hit game “Wordle” managed to become the most popular search term of the year both globally and in the US.

The rest of the top searches, news, and topics also shouldn’t surprise you. Ukraine, Queen Elizabeth, and Hurricane Ian dominating Google Search shouldn’t be a surprise, either. People were also really interested in what was up with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard in their very public legal dispute, and interestingly, Disney’s Encanto was the top searched-for film—despite being released in 2021 rather than 2022.

These are just some highlights, so be sure to check out all these top trends in the world or in your country over at Google Trends.

Google’s Local Year in Search 2022

The most interesting thing for you to do is probably to look for what was popular in the area around you, or in places that you lived in before. You can do that over at Google’s Local Year in Search 2022, where you can either type in a ZIP code or a city. It will give you a rundown of the most unique search terms in your area, though Google’s definition of “area” is pretty generous.

A quick search reveals that a big chunk of Vermont is bundled together as one area with bits of New York and New Hampshire included. It’s not better in other sample parts of the country, with the Philadelphia area encompassing almost all of New Jersey and stretching very close to New York City.

To circle back to Vermont, I was still interested in a look at its big Burlington area, as that’s where I lived for a year as an exchange student back in 2010. It was the only place that had “climbing gym” in its top “near me” searches in the US while country music was the area’s top music genre—probably much to my host father’s delight. It's definitely a fun insight into what matters to people in your general region, but if we could see smaller areas, it could be much better still.

Year in Search isn’t the only review format Google has released this year. The company also published the Spotify-like YouTube Music 2022 Recap and its new A Year on YouTube. Be sure to check both of these out if you're an avid user of either platform.