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Manhattan’s Times Square is a bright, visual cacophony of glass skyscrapers and gargantuan billboards advertising nearby Broadway shows, soda, whiskey, razors, pretty much everything you can sell— and it’s also the most Instagrammed landmark in America. Visitors convene at the flatiron intersection to create that shot that says, “I was on the street where it happened.”
It may surprise people that — as New Yorkish as it is — Times Square earned this honor. Photography and design company Printique analyzed hashtag data to make the call of the top 10 most Instagrammed destinations in the US. But these aren’t necessarily the most visited locations; they’re the ones most visited by those who documented their trip with Insta.
Times Square gets hashtagged 410,438 times annually, while the second runner-up, the Grand Canyon in Arizona garners 358,171 hashtags a year. It’s an interesting juxtaposition that the two strongest locations are an urban streetscape and a geological stunner.
From here, the list touches on several bridges (the Brooklyn Bridge beats out the Golden Gate Bridge) and lingers on two more New York entries, the Empire State Building which was the world’s first building to top 100 stories, and the Statue of Liberty with her darkness-illuminating torch. (Also, can we say that we hope France gets us something for Secret Santa next year?).
Two more national parks prove that travelers with backpacks wield significant Instagram prowess despite possibly emerging from a tent for their selfie. California’s Yosemite National Park came in at number seven on the list, followed by Wyoming’s Yellowstone. At Yosemite, dramatic rock formations like Half Dome and El Capitan inspire a spiritual sense of awe, while Yellowstone is famous for its thermal geysers and herds of buffalo.
Washington’s Space Needle with its Jetsons-like architecture and the world’s only revolving glass floor snagged the penultimate ranking on the top ten.
The Hollywood sign, the letters on the hill overlooking Los Angeles, brings up the caboose with an annual hashtag count of 68,803. Hot tidbit: the sign originally read “Hollywoodland,” advertising a housing development rather than the movie industry.
Kudos to the National Park Service which runs four out of ten of these winners! Besides Yosemite and Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty fall under its jurisdiction. Not too shabby, rangers.
Here's the full list:
1. Times Square, New York
2. The Grand Canyon, Arizona
3.Brooklyn Bridge, New York
4. Golden Gate Bridge, California
5.Empire State Building, New York
6. Statue of Liberty, New York
7.Yosemite National Park, California
8.Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
9. Space Needle, Washington
10.Hollywood Sign, California