A survey asked 24,000 people living in cities across the world one straightforward question: would you describe your city as beautiful?
The results made for a pretty interesting list, with some expected names and a few that might surprise you. What comes through clearly is that beauty means something different depending on where you are. There are dramatic coastlines in one place, medieval alleyways in another, and in at least one case, a city that’s technically an archipelago. Here are some locations worth adding to your bucket list.
Cape Town came out on top, and it’s not hard to see why.
Cape Town landed at number one with 86% of locals calling it beautiful, which is a remarkable figure when you think about how hard it is to get that kind of consensus on anything. Squeezed between Table Mountain and the Atlantic Ocean, with powder-soft beaches running along its edges and the dramatic Twelve Apostles cliffs in the background, it genuinely looks like it was designed to be looked at. The botanical richness of Cape Floral Kingdom adds another layer that most coastal cities simply can’t match.
Second place went to Edinburgh, with 84% of locals backing it, and anyone who’s visited will understand why without much persuasion. The Scottish capital is a collision of architectural eras that somehow works: the Georgian crescents of the New Town sit alongside the tight, winding medieval lanes of the Old Town, with Gothic spires rising up between them. Walking around it feels like moving through several different centuries at once, and none of them jar against each other.
Sydney, Chicago, and Lisbon all made a strong case for themselves.
Sydney came in third at 78%, which makes complete sense. The Opera House alone gives the city one of the most recognisable skylines on the planet, and when you add golden sandstone streets, glassy towers, and an abundance of beaches, it’s a hard place to make look bad. Chicago followed at 77%, which might raise an eyebrow until you remember that the Windy City is actually one of the greenest urban spaces on earth, with hundreds of parks, sweeping Lake Michigan views, and the winding waterways of the Chicago River running through it. Its claim to being America’s best-looking city is a reasonable one.
Lisbon came fifth with 74%, and it’s the kind of place that earns that vote easily. Coastal sunlight hits the city at an angle that makes everything look golden, yellow trams wind down steep streets lined with pastel buildings, and azulejo tilework covers walls all across the city. It has a very particular visual identity that’s immediately recognisable and genuinely hard to get tired of.
Paris made the list, though perhaps not as high as you’d expect.
Paris came in sixth at 68%, tied with Stockholm. It’s lower than some might anticipate, though the city’s visual identity remains as distinct as ever: grand boulevards, Haussmannian facades, wrought-iron balconies, and the Seine running through the middle of it all. The decision to resist skyscrapers for so long has kept the roofline consistent and the streetscape human in scale, which makes a real difference to how the city feels on foot.
Stockholm sharing sixth place is worth a moment’s attention. It’s a city built across 14 islands where freshwater Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic Sea, which gives it a visual quality that landlocked cities simply can’t replicate. The narrow medieval streets of Gamla Stan contrast with the more elevated, bohemian feel of Södermalm, and more than 50 bridges connect everything together. It’s a city that rewards wandering.
Porto, Medellin, and Riga round out the Top 10.
Porto came in at 67%, and its particular brand of beauty is something you really do have to see in person to fully appreciate. Red-roofed buildings seem to cascade down towards the Douro River in layers, and the mix of textures across the city— the iconic blue-and-white tiles of São Bento Station, weathered residential buildings, Art Deco cinema facades—gives it a richness that photographs only partially capture. The hilltop park of Jardim do Morro across the river in Vila Nova de Gaia is the best place to take it all in.
Medellin at 66% and Riga at 65% both earned their places. Medellin sits in a natural river basin surrounded by lush green hills, and its architecture blends colonial-era churches with genuinely inventive modern structures like the Orquideorama, a striking wooden canopy in the botanical garden that looks part honeycomb, part flower. Riga, meanwhile, is a city of gargoyles, sphinxes, and lavish floral motifs; it’s a a hub for Art Nouveau architecture centred on the UNESCO-listed Alberta Street, with a cobbled medieval old town sitting alongside it. It’s one of the more quietly spectacular cities in Europe and deserves far more attention than it typically gets.
The list actually tells us a lot about what makes a city beautiful.
Looking at the ten cities together, a few things stand out. Water features heavily; Cape Town, Sydney, Stockholm, Porto, Chicago, and Lisbon all have important relationships with the sea, a river, or a lake, and that proximity seems to do a lot of heavy lifting visually. Architecture matters too, but not in a monumental way. The cities that scored highest tend to be ones where the streets themselves are interesting to walk through, not just the landmarks.
The other thing worth noting is that locals rated these cities, not tourists. That’s a meaningful distinction. It’s easy to find a city beautiful when you’re seeing it fresh for a weekend, but these are people who live there, commute through it, and see it in all weathers. When 86% of Cape Town residents still call their city beautiful on that basis, it carries a different kind of weight.
