We sh*t you not! Chiang Mai has been named the best city in the world for public toilets

Stop the presses. Cancel the awards ceremony. Chiang Mai has once again been declared the best city in the world – although this time it has absolutely nothing to do with food, culture, mountains, or affordability.

It’s our toilets.

According to the newly released Global Restroom Index from bathroom retailer QS Supplies, Chiang Mai has taken the porcelain throne for having more public toilets per capita than any other large city surveyed anywhere in the world.

Okay, this achievement might not make it onto the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s next billboard, but anyone caught short after a particularly aggressive khao soi will surely appreciate the accolade.

Their dedicated ‘researchers’ worked out the winning score by counting every public toilet listed on OpenStreetMap across more than 500 major cities around the world, before comparing those figures against population. 

And when all the flushing, counting and presumably very serious spreadsheet work was complete, Chiang Mai emerged triumphantly from the cubicle with 92.7 public toilets per 100,000 people. 

And frankly, perhaps we should have seen this coming. 

This is a city where you're rarely too far from a petrol station, shopping centre, market, temple, café or other establishment containing somewhere to relieve yourself – although whether every toilet mapped in the study meets your personal definition of ‘public’ may be another matter.

So while most of these ‘public toilets’ may not fit a more traditional European criteria, it puts us a toilet seat ahead of some very respectable competition. 

Bern in Switzerland came second with 91.2 toilets per 100,000 people, followed by Basel with 79.4 and Zurich with 76.5. Salt Lake City rounded out the top five with 66.6.

Even our novelty loos got some attention too. The ‘researchers’ specifically call attention to the rather extraordinary bathroom at Carp Café, where you can apparently do your business surrounded by fish swimming behind glass walls.

There are, however, a few caveats before we start erecting Trump-style golden toilets around Thaphae Gate.

The study counted amenities labelled as toilets on OpenStreetMap, rather than sending an extremely dedicated researcher around Chiang Mai to personally test all of them. The ‘researchers’ also say they manually corrected some obviously inflated figures, such as university toilets that weren't actually accessible to the general public. 

So this isn't necessarily a definitive census of every functioning bum gun between Doi Suthep and the Ping River; but with a lead like ours, we're happy to take the win.

Interestingly, Thailand didn't take the overall country crown. When QS Supplies averaged availability across major cities, Switzerland came out on top with 63.7 public toilets per 100,000 people, followed by Austria with 52.

Still, national rankings are somebody else's problem. 

Chiang Mai is number one. Or, depending on what you went in there to do, maybe number two.