The birthplace of every non-US born NBA player

Our last map featured the birth states of all of the 3101 NBA/ABA players who were born in one of the 50 US states. This map contains the birthplaces of all other NBA players. Note that all US-born players from the previous map have been removed in order to avoid skewing the scale; as for the US-born players who didn't make it last time, Puerto Rico is included on this map, but Washington DC (68 players) and the US Virgin Islands (3 players) are still absent.

 

 

A few additional topographical notes: the smaller Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe (3 players) is not visible at any level, so its players have been added to France's total. But Martinique (1 player) is visible (barely) at the standard zoom level (if you use your browser to zoom in it becomes easier to find). Both Martinique and Guadeloupe are French overseas regions; French Guiana (1), another French overseas region, is also visible on the map. Technically speaking, this means that France's totals should actually be 21, and not the 18 that is on the map.

Even still, France (18) is still in second place along with Germany (18). But Germany's totals include several players (Carlos Boozer, Anthony Randolph, Shawn Bradley, and Kiki Vandeweghe, among others) who were born to parents serving in the US military. Canada (21) is the non-US leader, and it should be noted that Canada's total does not include former MVP Steve Nash, who was born in Johannesburg and is the only NBA player to be born in South Africa.

Russia (9) is surprisingly bereft of NBA players, coming in 12th behind smaller countries like Serbia (15), Croatia (12), Australia (11), and Lithuania (10). Perhaps this is due to the fact that Russia has strong domestic basketball leagues of its own?

Brazil (11) and Argentina (9) carry South America, and Nigeria (9) and Senegal (9) are the leaders in Africa.

There are still many countries without NBA players. Most of Asia has no representation, including India, Indonesia, and the basketball crazy Philippines. While the first NBA player born in India may still be a ways off, there is a chance that we will see the first NBA player of Indian descent in the next couple of years.

The last decade of the NBA has seen increasingly more international players enter the league. This trend should continue, and I suspect that this map will change quite a bit over the next decade.

Data provided by Basketball-Reference.com and Wikipedia.

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