Top Beautiful City Parks Around the World: Discover the Winner

Introduction to Urban Green Spaces

City living certainly has its perks. From walking down the street for a bite at any number of stellar restaurants to excellent public transit options, and museums and cultural attractions galore, cities most certainly have it going on. The one thing cities may lack? Green space. If getting a little taste of Mother Nature matters to you, Uswitch, a green energy company, has some data you need to see.

Study Analysis and Methodology

In April, Uswitch released a study analyzing which cities have the most picturesque green spaces. The researchers used the WorldPopulationReview to source a long list of the world’s 100 most-populated cities. They then ran each city through Tripadvisor, selecting the ‘Top Rated Parks’ to discover the most highly rated in each location.

Next, they examined the names of each park through Instagram to see which parks were the most shared on social media. In situations where parks had multiple names, the company ran both names through Instagram and totaled the figures to provide a more accurate representation.

The parks were then ranked according to the number of hashtags, with the winner being crowned the most beautiful city park. Additionally, to enhance appreciation for these places, Uswitch calculated the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by each park, considering its acreage multiplied by the estimated amount of CO2 that the soil can absorb.

Top Rated City Parks

So, which one came out on top? That spot goes to New York’s Central Park, which garnered more than 7.9 million hashtag mentions.

“Famously in the background of many TV shows and films, like Gossip Girl, Home Alone, and ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ to name a few, this vast city-based park occupies a massive 843 acres of New York City and plays a crucial role in cleaning up the air of the bustling New Yorker lifestyle, thanks to the 18,000 trees that thrive there,” the company shared in a statement. “The Conservancy Tree Care team estimates that roughly one million pounds of carbon dioxide are removed from the city’s air each year due to the trees.”

London’s Hyde Park came in second on the list, with 2,363,707 hashtags on Instagram. It is also the only UK-based green space to make it to the top 20 list. According to Treeconomics and The Royal Parks, this park plays an important role in the environment of London, with its 4,000 trees removing a total of 2.7 tons of pollutants each year and storing an impressive 3,900 tons of CO2, preventing it from being released into the London air.

The rest of the top 10 includes Hangang Park (한강공원) in Seoul, South Korea, Griffith Park in Los Angeles, and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

To explore whether your city’s park made the list and to understand how important each park is to our shared climate, click here.