athens.taipei The Atlas of City Experiences
The Anti-Awards

24 rankings. Every one is the true extreme of a real measurement — there is no worst city, only cities magnificently bad at one specific thing.

All 24 rankings →
The weather6
The Sauna You Can’t LeaveThe Bedroom That Never CoolsThe Umbrella EconomyRain, By The MetreSixteen Thousand DaysThe Year Without a Window
The hours it keeps6
The Cinderella ClauseThe Early Bedtime AwardThe Sunday Ghost TownThe Breakfast DesertThe Great Lunch VanishingThe Part-Time City
Getting out5
The Great Escape IndexHardest City to Leave (In a Hurry)The Domestic BubbleThe Hibernating AirportThe Perth Meridian
The ground and the sky4
The Wobbliest GroundThe Volcano PartyThe Volcano Next DoorThe 3 p.m. Sunset Club
Everything else3
The Monoculture MenuThe Calendar of ExcusesA Gigabyte of Cats
Tools

Three ways to interrogate the atlas rather than read it.

Open the comparer →
Compare two cities Head-to-head on absurd terms only. No GDP, no cappuccino index. The year, month by month Where to be in each month, who has the most days off, and when the airports peak. Start from a goal Eat well at 2 a.m. · Work all day from a café — ranked by what the city keeps open.
How this is made

Every figure on this site states where it came from and what it cannot tell you.

Read the method →
Method & principles What we measure, what we refuse to guess, and why rhythm is never a claim about people. Sources Every corpus behind the atlas, with its licence. Books coming soon The long-form city profiles and the method book. Contact · request a city Tell us what the atlas is missing.
The index

126 cities across the atlas, by region — or browse the full A–Z.

Every city, A–Z →
Southern Europe21
RomeMilanBarcelonaMadridAthensLisbon
Western Europe20
LondonParisLuxembourgViennaAmsterdamDublin
North America & Caribbean18
New YorkMiamiAustinSan FranciscoLos AngelesSeattle
CEE & Balkans16
PragueBudapestWarsawBelgradeBucharestKraków
East Asia12
TokyoOsakaFukuokaSeoulBusanTaipei
South & Southeast Asia11
SingaporeBangkokKuala LumpurChiang MaiDa NangGeorge Town
The review desk · Edition I

Cities are products. Almost none are reviewed.

This atlas reads cities the way the people who live in them actually do — by what you can do, not by what they score. Start from what you are trying to accomplish, and see which cities are built for it. Compiled between its two type specimens, Athens and Taipei.

Start with what you want to do

measured from open data

The Anti-Rankings

24 rankings, all measured

There is no worst city.

Only cities that are magnificently bad at one specific thing. Every name below is the true extreme of a real measurement — the deadpan is that the evidence holds up.

Kitchens that turn back into pumpkins🕛 The Cinderella Clause →
🇨🇭 Geneva0%🇿🇦 Cape Town0%🇵🇦 Panama City2%🇲🇺 Port Louis2%🇦🇺 Perth3%
Where Sunday is a closed sign👻 The Sunday Ghost Town →
🇦🇹 Vienna21%🇩🇪 Munich26%🇩🇪 Berlin27%🇬🇷 Athens27%🇨🇭 Zurich30%
Cities that work fewer hours than you do⏳ The Part-Time City →
🇧🇷 Florianópolis42h/w🇧🇪 Brussels49h/w🇳🇱 Eindhoven53h/w🇱🇺 Luxembourg54h/w🇦🇺 Melbourne56h/w
No good time to come🌡️ The Year Without a Window →
🇵🇦 Panama City28°C peak🇨🇦 Montreal-12°C low🇫🇮 Oulu-11°C low🇺🇸 Austin-10°C low🇨🇳 Shanghai4°C low

This is the short list. The full ceremony — 24 categories, full standings, real evidence — is at the Anti-Awards, and any two contenders can go head-to-head.

The cities

126 read · 113 with measured rhythm

Singapore

🇸🇬

Marina Bay Sands (the tri-tower integrated resort, 2010) · Gardens by the Bay (2012, the Supertrees)

ErrandsCafé

London

🇬🇧

West End · pubs

Errands

Paris

🇫🇷

arrondissements · Métro

Errands

Luxembourg

🇱🇺

Court of Justice of the EU · Old City / fortifications (UNESCO)

Errands

Rome

🇮🇹

Vatican City (the only country inside a city) · Colosseum

ErrandsLate

Istanbul

🇹🇷

Hagia Sophia (537 AD, then cathedral-then-mosque-then-museum-then-mosque) · Bosphorus (Europe-Asia strait, world's busiest waterway)

CaféErrandsLate

Prague

🇨🇿

Prague Castle (world's largest ancient castle, Guinness) · Charles Bridge (1357)

ErrandsCafé

Vienna

🇦🇹

Staatsoper / Vienna State Opera · Burgtheater

Amsterdam

🇳🇱

canals · Venice of the North

Errands

Milan

🇮🇹

Teatro alla Scala (opera, opened 1778) · Duomo di Milano

Errands

Barcelona

🇪🇸

Sagrada Família · Park Güell

Errands

Budapest

🇭🇺

Széchenyi and Gellért thermal baths · Danube (divides Buda and Pest)

Errands

Dubai

🇦🇪

Burj Khalifa (828 m, world's tallest building) · Dubai Mall (world's largest by total area)

CaféErrandsLate

Dublin

🇮🇪

pubs (over 600) · Temple Bar

Errands

Abu Dhabi

🇦🇪

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque (2007, world's 8th-largest) · Louvre Abu Dhabi (2017, Jean Nouvel)

CaféErrandsLate

Bangkok

🇹🇭

Grand Palace + Wat Phra Kaew (Emerald Buddha) · Chao Phraya river

ErrandsCafé

Madrid

🇪🇸

Prado Museum · Reina Sofía (3.8M visitors)

ErrandsLateCafé

Athens

🇬🇷

Acropolis / Parthenon · Classical Athens / birthplace of democracy

LateCafé

Copenhagen

🇩🇰

Tivoli Gardens · Christiania (Fristaden)

Errands

Munich

🇩🇪

Oktoberfest · Hofbräuhaus / beer halls

Kuala Lumpur

🇲🇾

Petronas Towers (tallest twin buildings in the world) · Bukit Bintang shopping district

ErrandsCafé

Warsaw

🇵🇱

Reconstructed Old Town (UNESCO 1980) · Warsaw Uprising (1944)

Errands

Cape Town

🇿🇦

Table Mountain (cableway, New7Wonder of Nature) · V&A Waterfront (prime tourist destination)

ErrandsCafé

Lisbon

🇵🇹

Alfama · Bairro Alto

Errands

From the review desk

publications
The Experience of Athens City profile · 232 pp Coming soon
How the city actually works
The Experience of Taipei City profile · 248 pp Coming soon
How the city actually works
The Experience of Hong Kong City profile · 256 pp Coming soon
How the city actually works
The Experience of Rome City profile · 224 pp Coming soon
How the city actually works
What Cities Let You Do Method · 196 pp Coming soon
The capability atlas