From Ashton Court to Castle Park to Toopers Hill, we have some pretty iconic green spaces to choose from. But that said, the city is mostly defined by its colourful houses and calming waterways. Parks are more about quality over quantity here in Bristol, especially compared to the world’s best cities for green space.
Time Out—collecting data from 24,000 worldwide city-dwellers—has unearthed the world’s greenest cities, and found the best place to touch grass is a stone’s throw from Bristol. On a list that comprises stretches from Chicago to Cape Town, Singapore to Stockholm, a quiet UK city has been crowned number one.
To rank the world’s greenest cities, participants were asked: ‘How would you rate the green spaces and access to nature in your city?’ Overtaking last year’s winner, Melbourne, the world’s best city for green spaces and nature in 2026 is “the lush, densely park-populated city of Bath.”
Why has Bath been named the greenest?
With a green spaces score of 94%, Bath is highlighted for being “peppered with both small green pockets and vast expanses.” This includes the highlighted eighteenth-century Prior Park Landscape Garden, designed by the 18th-century poet Alexander Pope and now owned by the National Trust.
Bath and North East Somerset Council has green spaces high on its agenda—with “the 2025-35 Greener Places Plan outlines a ‘green infrastructure framework’, which ensures the city ‘has a more sustainable, nature-rich and climate resilient future’, utilising everything from parks and gardens to the canals (blue and green corridors) and sustainable drainage.”
Ignoring the fact that Time Out says Bath is surrounded by the “verdant Gloucestershire countryside” (it’s in Somerset if you failed geography), it even suggests checking out the Bathgate Landscape Partnership’s comprehensive guide to the best walks in and around the city.
The world’s best cities for green space:
- Bath, UK
- Chicago, USA
- Montreal, Canada
- Riga, Latvia
- Melbourne, Australia
- Cape Town, South Africa
- Singapore
- Medellín, Colombia
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Hamburg, Germany
- Beijing, China
- Vienna, Austria
- Helsinki, Finland
- Krakow, Poland
- Oslo, Norway
- Seoul, South Korea
- Tallinn, Estonia
- Auckland, New Zealand
- Luxembourg, Luxembourg
- Sao Paolo, Brazil
The post The world’s best city for green spaces is just 11 miles from Bristol – meaning it’s got better access to parks and nature than Chicago, Melbourne and Singapore appeared first on Secret Bristol.
