In this article, we will get the insight in the countries that have the most public holidays in the world. Also, are all those holidays mandatory, and what are some other types of holidays? Answers, of course, vary from country to country, derived from various customs and important dates, of religious, cultural or historical meaning.
Public holidays in general are some important dates for a country which are usually not working days for both private and public sector workers. In most cases, those holidays have fixed dates, but some of them are movable depending on some factors like moon cycle or day in a week. A nice review of holiday types was given by Office Holidays. According to it, the most common are: national holidays, gazetted holidays, bank holidays, restricted holidays, bridge holidays, federal holidays and statutory holidays.
Pixabay/Public Domain
National holidays or national days are those of importance to the establishment of the country or gaining independence. Fun fact is that Denmark and Great Britain do not have a National day. Gazetted holidays are those who are made mandatory by the government (and the term is usually used only in countries that are former British colonies). Restricted holidays are not mandatory, but specific individuals may choose some of those holidays (those are holidays related to cultural and religious issues). Bank holidays can be referred to simply as public holidays (also in former British colonies), but only as holidays when banks are closed on other places. Bridge holidays are those that are connected to usually non-working days (weekends). Federal holidays are US holidays authorized by law. Statutory holidays mark mandatory holidays in some countries.
Well, this all may seem like a mess of terms as there is no general universal “rule” for how holidays should be managed. For that reason, we have tried to make a selection of holidays for countries that have most public holidays, in terms of the public holiday being mandatory and defined by the government. Among them will certainly be some of the most celebrated holidays in the world as well.
We have made the first steps of the search for countries that have the most public holidays at places like World Atlas, Human Resources, Gulf Business, Jakub Marian and the Telegraph. Even though all of them mention the same countries more or less, the figures differed so we have checked all the mentioned countries individually to see what the real figures should be. If official government information on public holidays was not accessible, our main resource for that search was the Office Holidays.
So, let’s go through next pages and take a look which are those lucky countries that have the most public holidays in the world.
