Where Do People Use Top Sheets and Why?

Where do people use top sheets?

In the British Isles (i.e. Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England, plus some small islands in the vicinity) people don't use top sheets. They put a fitted sheet on a bed and a duvet with a duvet cover which is washed from time to time. This practice is pretty much universal in the British Isles from the cheapest hostel or AirBnB, to the most deluxe four star hotel, and pretty much everything in between.

This is also the predominant practice in some of Northern Europe (including all or most of Scandinavia) although I don't have detailed geographic boundaries for this practice worldwide.

In the U.S. and Australia, in contrast, people put a fitted sheet on a bed, then a matching top sheet, and then on top of the top sheet, a bedcover, a quilt, or a comforters (a.k.a. duvet) usually without a duvet cover.

If I recall correctly, they also use top sheets in New Zealand, even though parts of its are cooler than the U.S. and Australia in the summer, probably mostly out of cultural influences from the U.S. and Australia.

Why does this happen?

The key point is that summers in the British Isles and much of Northern Europe aren't very hot. The average high in July in London, near the southern end of the geographic range of this practice, is 72º F.

There is no place in Australia that is that cool in the summer (a season it experiences when it is winter in the Northern hemisphere).

There is only one major American city that is that cool in July: Anchorage, Alaska, where the average high in July is 65º F (although San Francisco has the same average high temperature in July at London, as does Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada).

Basically every major city in the continental U.S. (even in Maine and Washington State) and Hawaii and in other U.S. territories is warmer than London in July, although a few high elevation mountain towns are an exception.

In places that are warmer than London in the summer, it is frequently too hot at night for a duvet or comforter to make sense, especially if one is trying to be thrifting by not using excessive air conditioning only to warm yourself against the air conditioning with insulation at night. 

In middle latitudes of the U.S. interior in places like Denver and Cincinnati, it is frequently too hot for a comforter from sometime in May until sometime in September. Further south, the comforter season is even shorter. Further north, it is a little longer.

On the the other hand, even if it is too warm for a comforter, people in the U.S. and Australia often still like to have something over them while they sleep, both for modesty and to keep out the occasional flies, gnats and mosquitos that manages to make it into the house. Some people find that having something on top of them while they are in bed also helps them to sleep.

Often, to keep the bed pretty when it is made and not being used, people in the U.S. or Australia will also add a pretty bed cover such as quilt or thin, not very warm blanket. But, the top sheet is necessary to avoid having to clean the quilt or blanket (or in colder months the uncovered comforter or duvet) in the laundry on a regular basis because it prevents the harder to clean fabric from being exposed to sweat and smells. 

The duvet cover fills that role in cooler climates, and since it is very rarely too warm to use a duvet at night in the places where this is the common practice, they is no need to have top sheets as a substitute for duvet covers when it is warmer.