Singapore is ranked the 12th most colourful city in the world

Here’s a ranking to back up Singapore’s reputation as a vibrant city: our island has officially placed 12th in a global study measuring the world’s most colourful cities.

The list comes from Irish travel insurance provider JustCover, which analysed image data from 78 cities worldwide. Using pixel-level colour detection, the study counted how many unique colours appear across each destination and translated that into a “vibrancy score” out of 100 – basically a data-driven way of asking: which cities look the most visually alive?

At the top, Lisbon takes first place with over 2.6 million unique colours and a perfect score of 100. It’s followed by Kuala Lumpur in second and Porto in third, giving Portugal a strong early lead in the overall ranking. Singapore comes in at 12th place, with a vibrancy score of 63.2 out of 100 and around 1.66 million unique colours identified in the analysis.

So what exactly pushed Singapore onto the list? It’s the mix. The study highlights how colour shows up across different parts of the city – from hawker centre signage and the bright visual noise of food districts, to the pastel tones of heritage shophouses in areas like Joo Chiat, to the reflective glass skyline of the CBD, and Orchard Road’s neon-lit evenings. It’s not one defining aesthetic, but a layering of older neighbourhood colour and modern urban glow.

Here are the top 15 most colourful cities in the world, according to JustCover:

1. Lisbon, Portugal
2. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
3. Porto, Portugal
4. Cartagena, Colombia
5. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
6. Guanajuato, Mexico
7. Havana, Cuba
8. Hanoi, Vietnam
9. New Orleans, United States
10. Medellín, Colombia
11. Dubrovnik, Croatia
12. Singapore
13. Antigua, Guatemala
14. Barcelona, Spain
15. New York City, United States

Read the full report here.

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