Hoyle don't know the half of it

The other evening, I told monshu about this site, an amateur attempt to catalogue the most popular card games by nation and region. His response was to ask, "So what's the most popular card game in Azerbaijan?" Sadly, that is not one of those listed. But you can find entries for Turkey, Iran, and Armenia. And you will find listed which countries are strongholds of Sipa, Pitty Pat, and Voormsi, respectively.

As you might expect, North American regional variations owe a lot to the local settlement history--e.g. Boo-ray (a descendent of French bourré) in southern Louisiana, Sheepshead (Schafkopf) in Wisconsin, Hola in areas of Ukrainian settlement, etc. But there are also some surprises, like Literature, "an advanced game of the Go-Fish type that is played in Toronto but seems to have originated Tamil Nadu, India." And I'm still looking for an explanation of why Euchre is ubiquitous in most of Canada, the American Midwest and Northeast, the West Country and Channel Islands in the UK, and the Antipodes, and mostly unknown elsewhere.