From travel bloggers to second cousins, everyone we follow on Instagram seems to always be posting pictures from the coolest places. Whether it’s your coworker striking a pose with a giant statue or your favorite celeb sitting in front of a beautiful garden fountain, it’s pretty obvious that some cities just better lend themselves to photography. In this campaign, we sought to determine the most “Instagram-worthy” cities based on factors like number of botanical gardens and art museums, average temperature and precipitation, and number of hashtags the city has on Instagram.
Methodology
We took the 50 most populous U.S. cities and assigned each with a score between 0-50, with 0 being the worst possible score and 50 being the best. Each city’s 0-50 score is the sum of six smaller 0-10 scores, one for each of six categories including number of art museums, number of botanical gardens, number of architectural or historical homes, average precipitation, average temperature, and total corresponding hashtags on Instagram. Each category was also weighted subjectively (exact weights and sources can be seen below).
Ranking factors:
Number of Art Museums
- Weight: 2.0
- Source: Yellow Pages
Number of Botanical Gardens
- Weight: 2.0
- Source: Yellow Pages
Number of Architectural or Historical Homes
- Weight: 2.0
- Source: National Park Service
Average Precipitation
- Weight: 1.5
- Source: National Weather Service
Average Temperature
- Weight: 1.25
- Source: National Weather Service
Amount of City Hashtags on Instagram (#CityName)
- Weight: 1.25
- Source: Instagram
The 20 Most Instagram-Worthy Cities in the U.S.
And the most Instagram-worthy city in America is… St. Louis, Missouri! With an overall score of 46.5, St. Louis beat our second-place city, Richmond, Virginia, by more than five points. But what gave St. Louis such a high score exactly?
The home of the Gateway Arch has more art museums, botanical gardens, architectural or historical homes, and Instagram hashtags than the average city on our list. In fact, St. Louis actually has more than double the amount of art museums and botanical gardens, so be sure to check out the Missouri botanical garden or the St. Louis Art Museum the next time you’re in town!
The east coast and the midwest dominated the top 10, as just one southern city (San Antonio, TX) and zero western cities made the cut. There is some redemption for these regions in the top 20 however, as three western cities and four southern cities can be found from eleventh to twentieth place.
The 10 Least Instagram-Worthy Cities in the U.S.
If St. Louis has an antithesis, it just might be Birmingham, Alabama. With the worst overall score on our entire list of cities, Birmingham has just one botanical garden and 26 architectural or historical homes (the average amount of architectural or historical homes for a city on our list is 228). This seems particularly low for a city that has so much southern American history.
Three different Florida cities made the bottom 10 thanks to a below-average amount of art museums, botanical gardens, and architectural or historical homes. However, if your Instagram followers are fans of beach pics, these cities would probably be in the top 10 instead!
One city that you might be surprised to see in our bottom 10 is Washington, D.C. For the nation’s capital, D.C. has a surprisingly low amount of art museums and historical homes, and the almost 55-degree average temperature leaves a lot to be desired by amateur photographers everywhere.
Top Three Cities Spotlight
We already talked a bit about our most Instagram-friendly city, St. Louis, but we think runner-up Richmond, VA, and third-place Philadelphia, PA deserve some attention too!
While its individual factor scores aren’t quite as impressive as the ones boasted by St. Louis, Richmond still has an above-average number of art museums, botanical gardens, and city hashtags on Instagram. Pair these with below-average rainfall and suddenly architectural or historical homes is the only category that Richmond doesn’t excel in.
While Philadelphia has just about the same amount of art museums and botanical gardens as Richmond, it has many more architectural or historical homes. The high number of historical homes isn’t particularly surprising given it’s the country’s original capital city, but with all this being said, why does Philly rank lower than Richmond on our list? The answer lies in the City of Brotherly Love’s higher annual rainfall and colder average temperature.
Closing Thoughts
If you end up stopping by a botanical garden in any of our top 20 most Instagram-worthy cities, you might feel like you never want to leave. Well, with a little yard space and some help from K. van Bourgondien’s wide selection of flowers, that might not be impossible. Spring is coming up fast, and we’ve got everything you might need to begin cultivating your own garden.
Full Data
That wraps up our city ranking of the most Instagram-worthy cities in the U.S.. Interested in diving deeper into the numbers for all of the cities, or wanting to see how your city stacks up if it’s not listed within the above map?
We’ve compiled our full data study for all 50 U.S. cities analyzed into the interactive data table below. Search for the city you call home or click on the heading of each column to sort by that category!