It’s not surprising that Portland residents using Google in 2014 were more likely to look up lobster recipes and search for Subarus than people in the rest of the country.

Less predictably, instructions on twerking – a provocative dance style –and information on Coachella, a California music festival, also were among the city’s top searches.

For the first time, Portland was among the cities for which Google released top-10 lists of terms people searched for on the Internet, giving a glimpse into what was on the minds of city residents during 2014.

Google has compiled a year-end roundup of the most popular searches in five to 10 cities for the last 14 years, but this is the first year it produced a list for either the capital or largest city in each state. The searches were broken down into four categories: News or Events, “How to …” and “What is …” questions, and overall inquiries.

The overall searches tend to be similar from place to place, Google spokeswoman Jenise Araujo said. This year Robin Williams, the World Cup and Ebola took the top three spots both in Portland and nationwide.

It’s in the “How to …” and “What is …” questions that the searches differ more from city to city – and why Google wanted to expand the number of lists it generated. “It’s a chance to see what’s top-of-mind for people in particular cities,” Araujo said.

Some of those search subjects in Portland were the same as the national searches – What is ISIS? How to kiss? But, the top two “how-to” searches by Portlanders were about crocheting and twerking, neither of which appeared in the nationwide top 10 “how-to” list.

The No. 1 search in Portland could be attributed to crocheted hats and scarves becoming fashionable and showing up in more stores, speculated Helene Rush, owner of the yarn company Knit One Crochet Too in Windham.

There’s also more use for those kinds of accessories here than in other parts of the country.

Portland dance instructor Rosa Noreen said she hasn’t had any students ask her for tips on how to twerk, a type of dancing involving squats and hip thrusts made famous by Miley Cyrus. It’s a good thing they haven’t, she said.

“I worry about hurting my back.”

Maine’s most famous rapper, Spose, was similarly unaware of Portland residents’ interest in following in his footsteps. The musician from Wells was surprised to hear that “how to rap” made No. 7 on the list.

“It’s got to be a fluke,” he said. “They’re trying to look up Christmas wrapping, and they spelled it wrong.”

When it came to “what is” questions, the country was technologically curious, asking about AirDrop, the method of transferring files between Apple devices; WhatsApp, a messaging application for smartphones, and Gamergate, the controversy over sexism in the video gaming industry.

Meanwhile, Portland residents had some more basic inquiries, including the definitions of gelatin, trapezoid and science.

Although several overall searches were the same in Portland as they were nationwide, local residents were more interested in actress Jennifer Lawrence and recently deceased comedienne Joan Rivers than the average American. And they cared less about the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, the Disney movie “Frozen” and the mobile game Flappy Bird.

National and world events, including the Olympics, the Oscars and the crisis in Crimea, dominated Portland residents’ news searches, while information on this year’s elections in Maine snuck into the No. 10 spot. It was preceded by the Heartbleed bug, an Internet security flaw that exposed passwords and credit card numbers, another news search term that wasn’t nearly as common in other cities, Araujo said.

In addition to the top-10 lists compiled by Google, the company has a searchable database of search trends that shows the most common terms in various categories sought by people in a host of countries, states and urban areas, including Portland-Auburn.

For the most part, trends in the state and its largest urban area mirrored national ones – with a few outliers.

We’re more likely to look for a Subaru when others are searching for a Nissan. And, while cooks here and everywhere looked up recipes for chicken and pizza, we also wanted to know how to prepare pie, lobster and potatoes.

And while Portland is well-known as a foodie city, it doesn’t show in the Google searches. The most frequently searched-for restaurants here were Domino’s and McDonald’s. The only departure from the national trend was in our stonger-than-average affinity for Subway.

And when seeking out a leisurely read, we looked up The Atlantic more often than Us Weekly, the country’s preferred periodical.

Maybe our taste in magazines makes up for a lack of knowledge about trapezoids.

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