Rome and Paris are among the dirtiest in the world, and on the other hand, Singapore is ranked highest in terms of hygiene.
On November 28, global luggage storage company Radical Storage announced a ranking of the 10 dirtiest and cleanest cities in the world. Notably, the names leading the world’s dirtiest list are famous tourist destinations.
Radical Storage takes the top 100 tourist cities according to Euromonitor’s “Top 100 City Destinations Index”. For each city, they selected the top 10 attractions according to Google reviews, then analyzed more than 80,000 reviews – specifically 71,692 “clean” mentions and 10,165 “dirty” mentions – from October 2024 to November this year.
Reviews are scanned for positive or negative based on context, using only English, excluding cities with less than 100 reviews related to cleanliness, and eliminating invalid cases such as “not clean.”
A housing complex in Rome. Image: Italianism
Leading the dirtiest list is the Hungarian city of Budapest with 37.9% of people mentioning the word “dirty” in more than 1,600 reviews. The city’s sanitation management system seems to be having difficulty meeting the surge in visitors. By September, Hungary’s tourism industry recorded growth of 8% over the same period and Budapest’s increased by 12%.
Italy occupies four positions in the top 10 dirtiest including Rome (2nd place), Florence (4th place), Milan (6th place) and Verona (7th place). These historic cities, along with Paris, are facing major hygiene challenges in the ancient urban center, receiving more than 28% “dirty” ratings. Many residents in Rome are dissatisfied with the quality of life as the city becomes increasingly polluted. In Florence, the streets are flooded with tourists, making cleaning more difficult.
However, Florence also has solutions like AI trash bins to make waste disposal more enjoyable for everyone. Similarly, Paris is working to improve hygiene, especially after the 2024 Olympic Games.
On the contrary, Poland has two cities in the top 10 cleanest in the world: Krakow (ranked 1) and Warsaw (ranked 4). Over the past decade, Poland has invested heavily in waste management systems and public space maintenance.
In the European Commission’s 2023 “Quality of Life in European Cities” report, more than 80% of Krakow residents said they were completely satisfied with public spaces such as markets, squares and pedestrian areas.
Asia has two representatives in the top 10 cleanest cities, Singapore and Fukuoka in Japan – ranked 3rd and 10th respectively. According to Radical Storage, Singapore has long been the standard of clean urban areas. At the same time, data also shows that 98% of reviews about this city are positive. Singapore’s success comes from strict regulations such as banning chewing gum, spitting, green architecture and a cleanliness ideology ingrained in people’s minds since school.
| 10 dirtiest cities | 10 cleanest cities |
| Budapest | Krakow |
| Rome | Sharjah |
| vegas | Singapore |
| Florence | Warsaw |
| Paris | Doha |
| Milan | Riyadh |
| Verona | Prague |
| Frankfurt | Muscat |
| Brussels | Dubai |
| Cairo | Fukuoka |