[GoNative]

As I said earlier as far as I've found in my travels basements are most common in North America. Probably a number of reasons behind that including the type of heating systems (often big furnaces), in some areas where there is a high incidence of tornados a basement can save your life and back in the days at the height of the cold war having a basement as a fallout shelter was almost considered common sense. Not many other countries have the same combination of circumstances.