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In the historic London battle of north versus south, east versus west, there has always been one thing that unites us: we have some bloody good green spaces. From Richmond Park to Walthamstow Wetlands, there’s no limit to the mental health stomp locations on offer in the capital.
And now, there’s a ranking to prove just how green we are. Freepik, an AI company, has analysed Google reviews of more than 2,000 green spaces across the world’s 100 most popular cities to create a list of cities with the highest number of well-loved green spaces.
London comes in at second, with 78 parks, losing out to Tokyo, which boasts a truly impressive 159. To be fair to us, they’re working with a bit more space: 2,194 square kilometres in comparison to our 1,572. We topped the list for the most searched for green spaces, with an average of 5.18 million searches made each year. The top five searched for spots are Hyde Park, Victoria Park, Finsbury Park, Hampstead Heath and Regents Park.
Paris comes in third, with 63 green spaces in its city limits.
To get their data, Freepik mined TripAdvisor’s ‘Nature and Parks’ section of the 100 most popular cities worldwide, eliminated attractions with less than ten reviews, then collected the number of Google reviews and average star rating for the remaining 2,300 green spaces.
Their 78 parks figure for London might not be fully accurate though, as the Greater London Authority put the total number at a whopping 3,000. The GLA also claim that around 20 percent of London is made up of public green space, and 50 percent of the city is green (and blue) when viewed from above, thanks to parks, green roofs, road verges and private gardens. In 2019, we became the world’s first National Park City in recognition of our bounteous green spaces and the need to protect them.
So, next time you’re moaning about how grey London is, just remember: there are literally dozens and dozens of green spaces to explore, no matter the weather. Lucky us!
Check out our list of the best parks in London.
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