5 countries with the highest number of public holidays

Lots of people around the world always look forward to public holidays. It is seen as a welcome change in daily routine by some people.

Iran, officially ranks high up as one of the countries with the highest number of public holidays yearly. The Islamic Republic of Iran and also called Persia, is a country in Western Asia that has a complex public holiday system.

Iran uses three calendars for different purposes and the country commemorates many days based on Iranian traditions and religious events. This results in a total of 26 Iran holidays sometimes, with many ‘unofficial’ public holidays added each year.

Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is also high up there with its high number of public holidays.

This island country in South Asia marks as high as 26 public holidays in some years. This is mainly because Sri Lanka is a culturally diverse society with many festivals.

India is also another country that has lots of religious activities to mark leading to a high number of public holidays. On an average, India has 25 days of public holidays in a year.

This differs across cities as a Business Standard analysis found that the number of public holidays varies from 14 in Delhi to 34 in Odisha.

This is because there are many celebrations of many state and religious holidays like Diwali, Maha Shivratri, Guru Nanak Jayanti, Vaisakhi, Eid ul-Fitr, Muharram, and Christmas.

Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, is a country in Southeast Asia that has up to 25 public holidays depending on the year. Some public holidays in Myanmar last up to five days, depending on the city.

The high number of public holidays is mainly attributed to Myanmar's multicultural makeup.

For Nepal, an Asian country public holidays are as high as 22. This could even go higher in some cities. Like Myanmar, Nepal’s diverse culture contributes to the country’s many different religious and non-religious public holidays.

Interestingly, although it has a high number of public holidays, Nepal has a standard six working days a week.