Anyone who has followed this blog for a while will know we’re on a mission to seek out the world’s beautiful places, both through our own travels and our guest bloggers. So when we were contacted by a guy who has developed his own system to rank how beautiful a city is, we were very intrigued. This is his story, and we also reveal for the very first time what cities have come out top…
What makes a city beautiful? Innumerable theories have been offered by aesthetic philosophers, architects, city planners, environmental psychologists, and others. I became curious as to whether “common threads” can be found in the writings of 40 of the most famous commentators on civic beauty, from the Ancient Greeks up to the present.
To make a (very) long story short, my research culminated in the identification of 15 common threads. These common threads can be used to evaluate the beauty of urban places such as “Elegance” – how refined a city is, “Originality” and “Synergy” – the simultaneous stimulation of several of our five senses!
I have used these 15 common threads to categorize hundreds of beautiful sites in 15 cities worldwide. I have also developed a method for scoring the quality of those sites and accumulating the scores into an overall Cities Beautiful Index for each city. Here are the results using my methodology:
Number 1 – Paris (score of 70)
Joint number 2 – Kyoto (score of 67)
Joint number 2 – Istanbul (score of 67)
Number 3 – San Francisco (score of 64)
Joint number 4 – Rome (score of 62)
Joint number 4 – Athens (score of 62)
Number 5 – Budapest (score of 61)
Joint number 6 – Buenos Aires (score of 60)
Joint number 6 – Rio De Janeiro (score of 60)
Joint number 7 – Vancouver (score of 58)
Joint number 7 – Cape Town (score of 58)
Joint number 8 – Hong Kong (score of 57)
Joint number 8 – Barcelona (score of 57)
Number 9 – Jerusalem (score of 56)
Number 10 – Sydney (score of 48)
Written by Gil Castle. If you would like to know more about this ranking system visit the website CitiesBeautiful.org which summarizes all his research and provides interactive maps of the several hundred categorized sites in the above cities. Since “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, the website also has a series of multiple-choice questions (something quite like a Myers Briggs personality assessment test) that visitors can use to determine their favourites among the 15 common threads.
23 Comments
Escape Hunter
25 October, 2014 at 8:30 amTo me, Kyoto and Athens seemed quite basic, concrete jungles. Labyrinths of cubic buildings. But yes, of course – there are beautiful ancient attractions scattered here and there.
Barcelona is just breathtaking 🙂
And I also found Valencia enthralling. It’s quite downrated, so I’m trying to shed more light on it through my site.
rebecca
20 June, 2014 at 3:42 amall of which are now of my to see list 🙂 specially Kyoto
Marek
17 June, 2014 at 3:04 amI have been to 4/15 of these places and I 100% agree with this list! I would definitely like to see Hong Kong. The article was great!
Blithe
13 June, 2014 at 3:35 amWhat a great way to list beautiful cities, fascinating!
Gainage
10 December, 2014 at 1:25 pmGreat ! Paris is first 🙂
Hope we could keep that victory a long time…
Scott
12 June, 2014 at 9:39 pmI’ve been to eight of these cities, still got some more to do! 😉
Emma
12 June, 2014 at 9:32 pmWhat an interesting way to rank beautiful cities, I have to say I think the list has come out really well. I agree with all of them 🙂
Becky Moore
12 June, 2014 at 10:17 pmThanks Emma, Gil’s definitely come up with an interesting concept!
Katie
12 June, 2014 at 2:01 amApparently I have some travel work to do. I’ve only been to 2 of these cities! 🙂 Love the way you came up with – very fun post!
Barbara Cacao
11 June, 2014 at 2:17 pmThanks for sharing this great ranking, and for risking countless ‘…but my favourite city is in fact xxyy’. Soft factors such as the beauty of a city are not easily quantifiable. But if there is a Happiness Index, there is nothing wrong with a Cities Beauty Index.
Becky Moore
12 June, 2014 at 10:18 pmVery true! 🙂
Catherine
7 June, 2014 at 9:21 pmWhat an interesting idea, applying science to identify the beauty of a city. What a shame I haven’t been to any of them though!
Teresa
7 June, 2014 at 5:51 pmWhat Fun! I am thrilled to have been to 7 of the cities on the list and agree they are all beautiful, and I loved them all. To me, for a city to be beautiful, as well as the ability to walk around it, and the architecture and culture and gardens etc etc it has to have friendly and welcoming people who love their city but also love their visitors. My own list would also include London and Florence.
Sand In My Suitcase
7 June, 2014 at 12:17 amGreat list. We’re glad Vancouver (our home city) is high up there :-). We think “walkability” is important when ranking a city’s beauty – we want to be able to appreciate it on foot!
Becky Moore
12 June, 2014 at 10:19 pmThat’s definitely a good point! I tend to love more compact cities!
Samantha
6 June, 2014 at 5:24 pmI need to get out more! From this list I’ve only been to Vancouver. They’re all beautiful cities
Lynda
6 June, 2014 at 2:16 pmI visited Cape Town earlier this year and it was beautiful! Sydney, meh… but then again, I’m from Melbourne 😉 haha.
Agness
6 June, 2014 at 1:41 amHong Kong is definitely my place. I often travel there to relax, walk through the Bay and dig into a basket of dim sum!
Becky Moore
12 June, 2014 at 10:20 pmI have a soft spot for Hong Kong too! 🙂
Jean | Holy Smithereens
5 June, 2014 at 4:57 pmInteresting mix in this list, and also a very detailed method of getting the results! I tried to take the test but didnt get to the end (very comprehensive test!)
When it comes to cities beauty depends on what you experience as well, not just the civic or aesthetic layout of the place.
Julien
5 June, 2014 at 2:51 pmCape Town should be number one…
Anna
5 June, 2014 at 11:32 amAs always there’s going to be someone that disagrees with the order. I think some people get ‘beauty’ mixed up with emotion, expectation and hype. Because my personal opinion is that if you were to look at Paris with a purely aesthetic eye -it wouldn’t even make the reserve list. Everyone I know who has been has pointed out a small fact to me and I agree – the entire city smells of piss.
Marta Kulesza
5 June, 2014 at 11:26 amMy favorite European cities are by far Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Porto. In South America that would be Rio de Janeiro. I must say I was a bit disappointed by Buenos Airies, but I think the weather really contributed to that + I was at the end of my 7-month long trip and I just couldn’t be bothered that much to be honest. I will have to give it another chance at some point in the future.