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There really is no place like Hong Kong. As your resident advocates of cool things to do, see, eat, and more in the city, the Time Out team naturally counts ourselves among Hong Kong’s biggest fans, but even first-time travellers always have positive things to say about our little corner of the world.
What makes Hong Kong so appealing is that it is a city of contrasts. We are a very small city in the grand scheme of things, but the sheer amount of things to do and people roaming our streets makes it feel much larger. We are famously a global financial hub filled with gleaming skyscrapers and a Blade Runner-esque cityscape, but rolling mountains, untouched nature, and waters stretching out to the horizon lie within an hour’s easy distance from the city centre. We have a plethora of Michelin-starred and globally acclaimed restaurants and bars (most recently, Bar Leone was proclaimed the best bar in the world by World’s 50 Best, and has just been confirmed to bartend at the 98th Oscars’ after-party!), and yet the streets are still lined with rustic, down-to-earth eateries offering unrivalled flavour profiles. As we like to say, Hong Kong has the best of all worlds.
Thankfully, it seems like both locals and global citizens worldwide are also huge fans of ours! For a decade now, Time Out has surveyed urbanites all over the world to find out what they love about their respective cities – from food and nightlife to happiness, affordability, and quality of life, and even love and romance – then collating responses into an exciting catalogue of reasons to visit. This year, over 24,000 people across 50 cities were surveyed, and their opinions combined with more than 100 Time Out city experts to form a 50-strong list of top-notch cities in the world. The result? Hong Kong has been ranked as the 15th best city in the world for 2026!
Unsurprisingly, restaurants was a category that we ranked highly in, with 73 percent of survey respondents thinking Hong Kong is a great city for eating out. We’re also well into the swing of Art Month, and 76 percent of Hongkongers reported that it’s cheap or free to enjoy art, making this an affordable pastime in the city.
Another major tick in Hong Kong’s favour is our fantastic public transportation system, which received the joint-highest score in its category among worldwide cities. 93 percent of locals have rated our MTR, buses, mini buses, and taxis as ‘good’ or ‘amazing’. Our cab drivers may be a bit more surly than most, and our mini buses sometimes akin to rollercoasters on wheels, but overall the world agrees that our public transport is clean, affordable, safe, not to mention we sure are efficient about getting people from point A to B in record time! Even if you prefer getting around on your own two feet, 72 percent of survey respondents rank Hong Kong high in walkability – and we definitely agree, since our city is compact which makes it easy to walk around everywhere if you choose to.
On a global scale, Hong Kong is ranked at No. 15, but when looking only at Asian cities, we sit pretty this year as the fifth best city in the region. Shanghai, which received the highest overall affordability score, ranks at No. 2 worldwide and the top in Asia; while the next Asian city on the list is the Thai capital of Bangkok at rank eight, bolstered by its fantastic food scene and ongoing cultural glow-up. This is swiftly followed by Seoul and Tokyo at No. 9 and 10, respectively, before Hong Kong clocks in at rank 15, with Singapore at No. 23.
As for the world’s best city, this year’s honour goes to the southeastern Australian city of Melbourne, which claimed top spot thanks to its popularity among Gen Z residents, an abundance of festivals and sporting events, and a massive improvement in its public transport network with the new Metro Tunnel rail.
Dive into the full list of the world’s 50 best cities (and why!), and check out the top 20 rankings below:
Time Out’s Best Cities 2026
- Melbourne, Australia
- Shanghai, mainland China
- Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- London, United Kingdom
- New York, United States
- Cape Town, South Africa
- Mexico City, Mexico
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Seoul, South Korea
- Tokyo, Japan
- Zurich, Switzerland
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Sao Paolo, Brazil
- Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
- Krakow, Poland
- Porto, Portugal
- Guadalajara, Mexico
- Madrid, Spain
- Valencia, Spain
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