God's own country

Growing up in Denmark I always heard the term “Gud’s eget land” or “God’s own country” used about the US. I never quite questioned it, until recently when a Danish blogger living in the US keeps using it.

I started thinking that you hardly ever hear that expression in the US. In Denmark it is always used with a kind of snarky tone implying that us atheist Danes are smarter than those silly religious Americans. I do have some vague recollection of hearing it used the same way in English by the famous chattering classes in the UK.

So I googled it in English. Almost all references are to the state of Kerala in India. Wikipedia has a neat list of all areas calling themselves by the name God’s own country. These include New Zealand, Rhodesia, Kerala and Yorkshire. No mention of the US.

As I know the term more in Danish than English I figured I should google it in Danish .

Besides a bunch of people using it about the US, the Danish paper Politiken took the time to research it’s use :

It isn’t exactly possible to discover why exactly people say “God’s own country” about the US. According to “Gyldendal’s History of the US” by Erling Bjøl American’s started calling it “God’s own country” after the 1st world war. During the war American soldiers were in war for the first time in Europe and they missed the US, where the quality of life was growing and their appeared to be possibilities for all. The concise Oxford Dictionary says that “God’s own country” means a paradise on earth, in particular with regards to the US. When you search Danish news databases and compare them to American ones, you will see that we in Denmark use the expression “Gud’s eget land” a lot more than American journalists use “God’s own country”.

I am not quite sure I by the Mr. Bjøl’s explanation of it. It certainly doesn’t explain Dane’s obsession with the term. Also I couldn’t confirm the Oxford’s dictionary reference as it doesn’t seem to occur in the online version nor does it pop up in dictionary.com.

The term God’s Country does exist in Dictionary.com which says:

1. an area or region supposed to be favored by God, esp. a naturally beautiful rural area.
2. an isolated rural area.
3. one’s native region.

I’m wondering if it comes from people saying during wars “God is on our side”? But just about every country under the earth has said that as such time, in particular during times of war.

The other more likely possibility is that many religious immigrants to the US did consider it the promised land.

Anyway even if it has it’s roots in the US, it still doesn’t change the reason it is used by Danes. It will probably always be a very sarcastic term used between Danes showing that we are better than them. As a Danish/American it does however leave me slightly annoyed.