Where the world goes on holiday
10 Most Visited Cities by International Tourists
Bangkok, Paris and London trade the top three spots every year. Below them, a familiar list of Asian and Middle Eastern megacities.
Counting tourists is hard — Bangkok counts every overnight stay, Paris counts hotel nights, Dubai counts airport arrivals — but the rough leaderboard stays remarkably stable. These ten cities together pull in over 200 million international visitors a year.
Hong Kong, China · pop. 7,534,200
Even with recent dips, Hong Kong still ranks among the most-visited cities globally — driven mostly by mainland Chinese travel.
Seoul, South Korea · pop. 9,635,445
Seoul's K-pop and K-drama tourism has put it firmly on the list, especially for visitors from China, Japan and Southeast Asia.
Tokyo, Japan · pop. 13,613,660
Tokyo's tourist numbers exploded once the yen weakened — visa-free visitors now arrive in record-breaking waves.
Istanbul, Türkiye · pop. 15,701,602
Istanbul has been booming since the 2010s and now welcomes more international visitors than any European city outside London and Paris.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia · pop. 1,982,112
Kuala Lumpur's regional flight network and low costs keep it firmly in the global top ten, especially for intra-Asian travel.
Singapore, Singapore · pop. 5,535,002
Singapore's compact size belies its visitor numbers — 14+ million arrivals make it the densest tourist city on Earth.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates · pop. 4,248,200
Dubai's 17 million tourists arrive through one of the world's busiest international airports and rarely leave the emirate.
England, United Kingdom · pop. 8,908,083
London's 20 million international visitors come for theatre, royalty, museums — and increasingly, food.
Bangkok, Thailand · pop. 5,527,948
Bangkok routinely tops Mastercard's overnight-visitor rankings; it's the gateway to all of Southeast Asia.
Île-de-France, France · pop. 2,133,111
Paris has been the world's most-visited city for most of the last two decades, with the Louvre alone pulling 9 million people a year.
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For entertainment only. Rankings on this page are editorial picks compiled from public sources for fun and discovery — they aren't a scientific measurement. Population figures and place details come from open data; see the linked place pages for sources.