Looking to immerse yourself into the rich tapestry of cultural history? According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at least 40% of all tourists worldwide are considered cultural tourists, with culture as one of the most important motivations for travel.

The creative experts at Adobe Express curated the ultimate list of the world’s most cultural and inspiring cities, considering factors from the number of art galleries and museums, theatres, cinemas, historic spots, the street art scene, attractions, libraries and art centres.

  • Google searches for ‘cultural holidays’ have increased by a whopping 2,500% since the start of 2024.
  • Adobe Express curated the ultimate list of the best cities for culture lovers to visit in 2024.
  • Paris was crowned the world’s most inspiring cultural city, boasting an overall score of 8.52/10.
  • The full rankings and complete data set compared across all 40 cities analysed can be found here.

In the lead up to the holiday season, Google searches for ‘cultural holidays’ have increased by a whopping 2,500% as jetsetters look to take a trip away and experience local cultures, with two in five travellers considered ‘cultural tourists’.

To help travellers choose just where to go this summer, Adobe Express curated the ultimate list of cities for culture lovers to visit in 2024, comparing key factors including the number of art galleries and museums, theatres, historic spots, attractions, libraries and artworks.

The full rankings and complete data set compared across all 40 cities analysed can be found here.

Crowned the world’s most inspiring cultural city, Paris boasts a grand score of 8.52/10, thanks to the city’s rich artistic heritage, as well as having the highest number of street art hashtags on Instagram outside London (580,587).

The romantic city boasts the highest number of artworks available to the public (3,729), in comparison to London with less than half that amount (1,548). Paris also harbours the highest number of theatres, tourist attractions and art galleries compared to other cities. Tokyo and Seoul are the only cities on the list with a higher number of museums, with all three cities possessing over 300 to explore.

In second place, London appears as another strong contender for culture, scoring an admirable 8.34/10. The UK’s capital offers a wealth of artistic activities to pursue, with over 500 art galleries and museums to explore. Compared with the surprisingly smaller city of New York, London boasts nearly double the tourist attractions to the big apple, and nearly three times as many historic places.

In third is Berlin (8.04/10). Berlin claims a top spot in regard to historic locations (4,738), second only to Vienna with 5,477. Despite Vienna’s rich history, Berlin claimed a higher spot with over double the amount of theatres and galleries, and a whopping 3,000 artworks available to the public compared to Vienna’s 794.

Taking fourth spot is New York (7.73/10), which surpassed its fellow US cities of Los Angeles, Washington DC and Miami. Rounding off the top five is also Barcelona, achieving a commendable cultural score of 7/10.

Whilst known for its beautiful bridges and stunning canals, Venice landed in 40th place on the list, with a cultural score of 2.87/10. Joining Venice on this side of the rankings were the unique cities of Dubai (3.17/10), Miami (3.31/10), Bali (3.45/10), and Florence (3.52/10).

Methodology

Adobe sought to analyse the best cities for culture lovers. For that the data on 40 major cities worldwide was collected using OpenStreetMap as well as scraping songkick.com. The cities were then ranked using the percentrank method.

Data Sources:

1 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=GB&q=cultural%20holidays&hl=en-GB

2 https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/tourism/cultural-tourism/market-potential

Final table variables:

  • Theatres- number of theatres in a given city.

  • Libraries- number of libraries in a given city.

  • Art Centres- number of venues in a given city at which a variety of arts are performed or conducted, and may well be involved with the creation of those works, and run occasional courses.

  • Cinemas- number of cinemas in a given city.

  • Artworks- number of public pieces of art which are being staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all.

  • Attractions- number of points of interest which are interesting for tourists.

  • Galleries- number of galleries that display a variety of visual art exhibitions.

  • Museums- the number of museums in a given city.

  • Historic places- number of historic points of interest.

  • Concerts- number of upcoming concerts in a given city. For Mumbai and Chennai in.bookmyshow.com was used because of lack of listings on songkick.com (Collected on 05/04/2024)

  • Art #s- the all time number of posts with hashtag #citystreetart on Instagram.

Literature City- indicates if a given city is listed as a literature city by UNESCO.

Feature Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash