ИСТИНА

Data of search activity of Internet users is a promising source of information for research of people's ideas about any objects, including geographical. Google Trends service provides an opportunity not only to collect data on the popularity of certain search queries, but also to compare the popularity of queries originating from different cities, countries or regions. In this study, we examined the characteristics of the distribution of search queries on major Russian cities (over 500 000 population) made by residents of these cities. Obviously, most of the requests for each city come from residents of the same city or surroundings, but not all — a certain share of requests comes from other major cities. Based on this share of requests, we have identified the degree of interest of urban residents to other cities. This interest can be mutual or non-mutual. We have identified popular and unpopular cities to search on Google, as well as “introverted” cities whose residents are hardly looking for information about other major cities, and “extroverted” cities where residents are actively interested in other cities. We also identified groups of cities with increased mutual interest to each other. The identified relationships can be visualized using diagrams or maps for visual analysis. The conclusions of the article relate to the closeness of mental relations between major Russian cities and the factors that determine them as well as to the future prospects of using Google Trends and other similar tools in social and geographical research