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These Are the Top Cities for Book Lovers Around the World

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If you’re a jet-setting bibliophile, you might want to plan a trip to Hong Kong or Edinburgh. According to data from the World Cities Culture Forum, those two cities are packed full of great places to buy or borrow books.

Quartz explains that the World Cities Culture Forum collects information each year on cultural institutions and consumption in cities around the world. Cities self-report data, which means the Forum’s data set is limited to the cities that choose to participate. The organization reports on everything from the number of cinemas or film festivals to the number of bars and clubs in each city. For the World Cities Culture Forum survey on literature, 18 cities reported how many bookstores they have per capita, while 20 reported how many libraries they have per capita.

The results from the past three years provide insights into the centrality of literature in a range of cities around the world. Edinburgh, for instance, doesn’t just have a lot of libraries—it has 60 libraries for every 100,000 people. This is almost six times more than Warsaw, which holds the second place spot with 11.4 libraries per 100,000 people. Other cities with an impressive number of places to buy or borrow books include Taipei (17.6 bookstores per 100,000 people), Madrid (16 bookstores per 100,000 people), and Brussels (10 libraries per 100,000 people). While the list is only a sampling of a handful of major cities, it shows just how much cities around the world love their books.

View the full list on Quartz or check out the top 10 cities for bookstores and libraries below.

Bookstores Per 100,000 People:

1. Hong Kong (21)
2. Taipei (17.6)
3. Madrid (16)
4. Shanghai (16)
5. Toronto (13.9)
6. New York (10)
7. Sydney (9.4)
8. Paris (9)
9. Seoul (9)
10. Austin (8.2)

Libraries Per 100,000 People:

1. Edinburgh (60.5)
2. Warsaw (11.4)
3. Brussels (10)
4. Paris (9.2)
5. Seoul (6)
6. Shenzhen (5.9)
7. Vienna (5.9)
8. Hong Kong (4.2)
9. London (4.2)
10. Moscow (4.2)

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