PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — To wrap up the year, Google unveiled its annual list of the most-searched terms across the world. For Portlanders, 2023 was ruled by pop stars, pawn shops and post-apocalyptic dramas.
The latest Google Trends Year in Search results were released on Monday. Within Portland, the search engine shared the top searches for tours, TV shows, “near me” and “versus.”
Here are the final five contenders in each category.
Notably, the Rose City was the fourth location in the U.S. with trending searches for “The Last of Us” — proving Portlanders’ interest in the post-apocalyptic world shown in the HBO series and the video game franchise.
The city was also the fourth in the U.S. with the most “wildfires near me” searches. While 2023 was Oregon’s mildest wildfire season since 2019, more than 190,500 acres of land were burned statewide.
In addition to local results, Google broke down the country’s top five searches in different categories including news, people, passings, athletes and movies.
The war in Israel and Gaza was the most-searched news topic nationwide, while Damar Hamlin — the Buffalo Bills player who suffered from cardiac arrest during a game on Jan. 2 — was the most-searched person and athlete.
The top-searched death of 2023 was Matthew Perry, the “Friends” star who died of an apparent drowning in October. And of course, the most popular movie search was Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
