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How this map is calculated

Each region is coloured by how much mosquito activity has been reported there, on a traffic-light scale from green (low) through yellow, amber and red to black — the most-affected regions in Europe.

How the colour is computed

Raw GBIF counts track who reports mosquitoes, not where they're worst (Austria alone is ~50% of all tiger-mosquito records). So each region is scored by an effort-normalized signal — the species' share of all mosquito reports in its country, spread across regions by local concentration. That score is placed on a single fixed green→amber→black scale that is identical for every species and region, so a colour always means the same activity level. A region (or species) with no reports at all shows grey — the colour never contradicts the count beside it.

Two modes

🦟 Biting nuisance weights species by how aggressively & abundantly they bite — led by floodwater and boreal swarm species (vexans, sticticus, communis) that make places like Lapland and the Dalälven unbearable. ⚠️ Disease risk weights by vector severity (tiger & yellow-fever mosquitoes, West Nile Culex, malaria Anopheles). 12 species in total; weights are indicative.

Data sources

Occurrence records: GBIF (continent = Europe, georeferenced), assigned to Eurostat GISCO NUTS3 regions. Generated .

Important caveat

Normalization removes the big cross-country bias, but the signal is still indicative: within-country reporting differences aren't fully corrected (a hotspot like southern France can read low at national scale), samples are limited, and absence of reports doesn't mean absence of mosquitoes. The result lines up well with known hotspots — Spain, northern Italy, the Balkans, Hungary — and with ECDC establishment maps. For live disease risk, always check ECDC.

Good to know

The Asian tiger mosquito bites in the daytime and is expanding fast. Culex pipiens is the main West Nile virus vector. For live disease alerts, always check ECDC for the current season.

🐸 Wetland habitat layer

In the north (Finland, Sweden) the nuisance isn't the southern vector species — it's floodwater mosquitoes breeding in wetlands, bogs, mires and river-valley floodplains (e.g. Sweden's lower Dalälven). This layer highlights those breeding grounds directly from OpenStreetMap land-cover and major rivers — zoom in and the boggy belts and valleys light up at full detail. It shows habitat, not a live count, and is independent of the regional colour scale.

🏔️ Terrain shading

A smooth elevation tint straight off a global DEM (Mapzen/AWS terrarium tiles), like a physical contour map: low, wet ground reads hot red, grading up through amber and yellow to green on the high ground (fells & mountains drain fast and are cold/windy → fewer mosquitoes). Coastlines also get a green fringe — sea breeze and salt water suppress breeding (lakes don't: they still breed). A faint hillshade adds relief, and it sharpens as you zoom in. A terrain proxy, not a count — pair it with the wetland layer.

💬 Social reports

Real first-hand mosquito mentions gathered from TripAdvisor & Google reviews, Reddit, travel forums, blogs and local news across Europe — each dot is a quote tied to a place, coloured by reported severity (click for the quote & source). Quotes are shown in English and the original language. This is anecdotal “buzz”, heavily biased to where people post (towns, tourist spots), so treat it as ground-truth colour, not coverage — quiet areas may just be unposted.