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Nine places across the UK are officially in the running to take the baton from Bradford and be crowned the UK’s next City of Culture for 2029.
More than just a name, the winning City of Culture gets a £10 million boost from the government to go towards a year-long cultural programme that’ll generate jobs and attract thousands of visitors. Running every four years, since the scheme started in 2013 the title has been held by Derry, Hull, Coventry and Bradford
In order to be considered for the role, applicants had to answer questions around their vision for the future of their hometown, the social and economic impacts of getting the title and how confident they are that they’ll deliver. Each place will now receive a £60,000 grant to help them develop more detailed bids that will be submitted in the summer. After that, the longlist will be whittled down to four in September and the winner will be announced in the winter. Here’s a rundown of every area in the race to become the UK’s City of Culture 2029.
The 9 places bidding to become UK City of Culture 2026
Blackpool
Yes, it’s technically a town and not a city, but Blackpool is big enough and gets enough visitors each year to qualify for City of Culture. In 2029, it’ll celebrate the 150th anniversary of its beloved Blackpool Illuminations and 135 years since the opening of The Blackpool Tower (an icon in the world of ballroom dancing) and the Blackpool Grand Theatre. Beyond the big birthdays, Blackpool’s cultural offering includes the Showtown Museum, which is the UK’s first ever circus museum and the Grundy Art Gallery, which is welcoming a Claude Monet masterpiece later this year.
Inverness-Highland
If it wins the bid, Inverness (the UK’s northernmost city) will be the first Scottish city to be crowned the UK’s City of Culture. Its standout cultural attraction is Inverness Castle, which reopened after a grand £47 million transformation back in February and delivers an immersive experience guiding visitors through the rich history of the Highlands. Plus, there’s the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery which has a vast display of paintings dating from the eighteenth century to the present day. The application also encompasses the Highlands, where visitors can find the Highland Folk Museum, Caithness Broch Centre and the Highlanders’ Museum.
Ipswich
We hear you – like Blackpool, Ipswich is indeed a town, not a city. But it still meets the City of Culture criteria. The people behind the bid reckon that Ipswich is worthy of the title because of sites like the Ipswich Museum and Ipswich Art Gallery, which are both currently undergoing huge renovations but are set to reopen in early 2027. It also has the impressive Grade I-listed Tudor home Christchurch Mansion, where you’ll find the largest collection of collection of Gainsborough and Constable paintings outside of London; the Ipswich Transport Museum showcasing over 100 major transport and engineering objects and Ancient House, another Grade I-listed structure dating back to the fifteenth century.
Middlesbrough
Middlesborough is another town vying for the City of Culture title. Its headline cultural institution is the Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), which is the host of this year’s Turner Prize. The Dorman Museum displays a sprawling collection of artefacts from natural history, geology and social history while the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum tells the story of one of the world’s most famous navigators, James Cook. In its application, the town says that as City of Culture, it would platform its ‘incredible grassroots, early-stage and mid-career creatives’ and take inspiration from its ‘industrial sublime, which has long-captured imaginations from Aldous Huxley to Ridley Scott’.
Milton Keynes
One of the youngest places on the list (it was only founded in 1967) Milton Keynes has plenty of cultural attractions that could help it claim the City of Culture crown. The most famous of them is Bletchley Park, the former top-secret home of the World War Two codebreakers. Others include Milton Keynes Theatre and MK Gallery, which in 2026 is putting on the largest solo exhibition of British painter Euan Uglow in 40 years. As part of its bid, the city says it would launch Culture Kids MK, which would offer every child born in 2029 five years of free cultural access.
Portsmouth
Many of Portsmouth’s largest attractions revolve around its maritime history, like the Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, the D-Day Story and National Museum of the Royal Navy. But the CEO of Portsmouth Creates, one of the organisations leading the bid, said that they want to showcase ‘a side of Portsmouth that goes far beyond its traditional maritime identity’. Beyond those places, there’s the Portsmouth Museum & Art Gallery, Royal Armouries Fort Nelson and Portchester Castle. There’s also a recently launched walking trail that guides visitors around some of the most storied WW2 landmarks.
Sheffield
If things go Sheffield’s way, it’ll be the third Yorkshire city to have won the City of Culture title. The city already has a number of sites and events that put it on the cultural map. Showroom Cinema boasts brilliant film programming, film festivals (like Sheffield Doc Fest) and film classes, the Crucible theatre hosts dozens of fantastic productions and the Leadmill is a nationally acclaimed music venue that has welcome the likes of Pulp and Arctic Monkeys (though it’s now looking for a new permanent home). There’s also the annual No Bounds festival (one of the best in the UK) and Sensoria Festival which hosts gigs, exhibitions and screenings everywhere from an abandoned airfield to an outdoor swimming pool. The council said that its proposed City of Culture programme will ‘boost local pride, grow cultural participation in every neighbourhood and showcase Sheffield to the world’.
Swindon
Full details haven’t been revealed yet but Swindon’s railway heritage, links to the NHS and its large Polish and Goan communities are likely to be at the forefront of its bid to be City of Culture 2029. Its current lineup of great cultural offerings include the Prime Theatres, STEAM – Museum of the Great Western Railway, Museum & Art Swindon and the Museum of Computing. It puts on a vibrant spread of festivals throughout the year, too, like South Asian celebration Swindon MELA, street art festival Swindon Paint Fest, Swindon Festival of Literature, creative showcase Signal Festival and music fest Shuffle.
Wrexham
Wrexham has been shortlisted for City of Culture once before, but was beaten by Bradford. Since its football club was bought by Ryan Reynolds, the Welsh town has had a huge surge in tourism but it says that winning the bid will help ‘secure a bright social and economic future’. Later this year Wrexham Museum and the Football Museum of Wales will both reopen following a giant redevelopment project. They’ll relaunch together as a ‘museum of two halves’ – one half dedicated to celebrating Welsh football, the other to showcasing the heritage and culture of north east Wales.
Did you see that this historic Celtic city is officially one of the most underrated places to visit in Europe?
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