London is officially one of Time Out’s best cities in the world right now (2024)

We’ve revealed our list of the planet’s best urban hubs in 2024 – and the capital makes the top five

It’s no news to us Londoners that this city is one of the greatest on the planet. Sure, we love a good moan about its transport and weather, but few places boast quite so much cultural richness, so many awesome restaurants, fabulous bars, unmissable museums and more. There’s a reason Time Out’s list of the best things to do in London stretches to an enormous 101 options.

In news that’ll surprise pretty much nobody, London has once again been named one of the finest urban hubs on the planet. And this time it’s us who’s said so: London just placed fourth in Time Out’s ranking of the world’s best cities in 2024,beaten only by New York, Cape Town and Berlin.

This year’s list was curated with the help of Potentia Insight, who helped us survey thousands of city-dwellers around the world about stuff like the quality and affordability of nightlife, food and museums. We then combined that data with knowledge from our local experts on the ground.

Commenting on London’s admirably high placement, Time Out London editor Joe Mackertich said: ‘Our galleries are free. Our parks are massive. Our pubs are legendary. Our kebab meat is plentiful. There’s no city like it.’

Crunching the numbers, a whopping 94 percent of London-based survey respondents said they were ‘happy’, while 95 percent described the city as ‘beautiful’.

This isn’t the only recent global Time Out list that London has placed highly in. In our 2023 ranking of the coolest neighbourhoods in the world, King’s Cross came 24th.

You can read the full ranking of Time Out’s best cities in the world here.

Did you see that two London coffee shops have been named the most popular in the world?

Plus: this surprising London art gallery has been named the world’s best ‘hidden gem’.

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• Ed Cunningham
  News Editor, Time Out UK and Time Out London

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