I don’t think we need to pretend like Birmingham doesn’t get called a lot of bad things—whether it’s deserved or not, I’m not so sure! But there’s one thing Brummies have never been accused of: being unfriendly.
Now, Birmingham has been officially named one of the world’s friendliest cities. In fact, it’s one of four UK cities to be named, including Bristol, Liverpool and Edinburgh, while Dublin in Ireland also cracks the Top 10.
In an attempt to help travellers discover where they will find the friendliest experience in the world, business insurance experts at MoneySuperMarket have analysed more than 100,000 customer reviews from 107 different cities.
Looking at restaurants, bars, and tourist attractions on Google Maps, choosing between 30 and 50 locations from the top results, they analysed 1,000 reviews per city to identify which has the friendliest staff.
With the British Isles overwhelmingly on top, the world’s friendliest city is Edinburgh (with 59% of reviews mentioning friendly staff). Liverpool came 3rd (58.3%), Dublin was 5th (57.3%), while Birmingham (54.2%) and Bristol (53.7%) came 9th and 10th.
Elsewhere in Europe, France’s Paris (57.5%) and Austria’s Vienna (55.6%) also featured. As did the famously friendly Canadians in Montreal (56.8%). Somewhat surprisingly, Hanoi in Vietnam is the world’s second friendliest city (58.6%).
The friendliest cities in the world:
- Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Hanoi, Vietnam
- Liverpool, United Kingdom
- Paris, France
- Dublin, Ireland
- Montreal, Canada
- Vienna, Austria
- Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- Birmingham, United Kingdom
- Bristol, United Kingdom
