Most popular European cities in books

From the seductive charms of Paris to the vivacious streets of Rome, bustling cities make the perfect backdrop for novels. And for many, books can act as literary passports, whisking readers across the globe from the comfort of their own living space.

But which cities in Europe are the most written about in literature?

The printing experts at Aura Print combed through the vast expanse of the Google Books corpus (a repository boasting 25 million books) to identify the cumulative mentions of 31 prominent European cities across books spanning from 1920 to 2019.

20 most popular European cities in books revealed:

For the complete data of all 31 European cities analysed, please click here.

Beating all its European counterparts by a landslide, London snags top spot on the list to be crowned Europe’s most popular city in literature. Being featured an astonishing 286,675,501 times, this is nearly three times more than all other cities analysed. Dubbed by Charles Dickens as the ‘magic lantern’ that fired his creativity, the British capital has played host to a multitude of novels over the last century.

London book recommendations: A Tale of Two Cities, Sherlock Holmes, The House by the Thames

Trailing behind is Britain’s age-old cross-Channel rival, the beguiling French capital, Paris. Clocking in a mindblowing 95,290,475 literary mentions, the romantic and intriguing City of Lights has charmed and inspired a plethora of romance and fiction authors.

Paris book recommendations: Paris Is Always A Good Idea, The Little Paris Bookshop, The Paris Wife

The Eternal City, Rome claims third spot (48,840,949 mentions), triumphing over its fellow Italian cities with an impressive 74% greater share of literary attention than Florence (6th), Venice (12th) and Milan (17th), on average. From its glorious imperial past to the vibrant present, the Italian capital makes a captivating backdrop for books of all genres.

Rome book recommendations: Eat, Pray, Love, Conclave, Four Seasons in Rome

Whipping up fourth place with a significant 37,079,709 mentions in books is Berlin. Steeped in history with a turbulent past, the partially destroyed German capital offers a striking cityscape, serving as a wellspring of inspiration for historical fiction and thriller writers.

Berlin book recommendations: Goodbye to Berlin, Alone in Berlin, The Artificial Silk Girl

Rounding off the top five most written about cities is Moscow. A city of enigmatic paradoxes and captivating cultural histories, the Russian capital has entranced novelists for decades, accumulating a significant 31,405,361 literary references.

Moscow book recommendations: A Gentlemen in Moscow, Gorky Park, In the First Circle

Methodology

1. Aura Print sought to determine the most popular European cities within the realm of literature.
2. Firstly, the experts compiled a list of the most prominent European cities, establishing a seed list comprising of 31 cities.
3. They then utilised Google Ngram Viewer to scour a large corpus to find the percentage of mentions for each city during every decade for the past 100 years (1920 – 2019).

1. To ensure relevancy, each search term was appended with the “_NOUN” suffix, indicative of instances where the term was used within a noun-related context.
2. Subsequently, the experts obtained the total number of word count spanning the last century from Ngram and calculated the number of mentions accrued by each city. To do this, the total word count was multiplied by the corresponding percentage of mentions.
3. Finally, the total occurrences from 1920 to 2019 were ranked descendingly to reveal the most popular European cities named in literature.

Feature Photo by Pauline Loroy on Unsplash