Why Scottish cities are smiles better than London

Edinburgh is the ninth-most ‘LOL’ city on the planet, according to a new survey.

The study for MoveHub.com compared 67 major cities all around the world on how many comedy clubs, comedy shows, comedy festivals and social media mentions of the word ‘LOL’ there are per 100,000 people to determine the ultimate destinations for the most cheerful chuckles and side-splitting anecdotes.

And proving that laughter is not only good for the soul but good for your health, this totally unique study shows that Glasgow is the 20th best city for laughs on Earth – ahead of London, which is 23rd.

America came out on top with the leading three places, with Washington DC taking first place, beating San Francisco and Chicago into second and third.

Manchester (seventh) and Edinburgh were the only two UK cities to place in the top ten, securing the north of the country ‘comedy king’ status over London in the south.

Edinburgh is the seventh-most LOL city on Earth

The world-renowned Edinburgh Fringe, paired with its impressive number of comedy clubs (4 per 100k people) boosted its position into ninth place.
At the other end of the table, Taipei, Buenos Aires and Mexico City where ranked the three least funny cities in the ranking, scoring poorly across the board.

Charlie Clissitt, who headed up this research for MoveHub.com , said: ‘At MoveHub.com we want everyone to be living their best life and laughter is a big part of this. If you’re feeling stressed out it might be because you’re simply in one of the most un-funny cities in the world.

‘Having Washington DC – the site of so much political turmoil – come out on top was the surprise result of the study, but in my book, it’s always better to laugh than cry.’

The top 10 cities were: 1, Washington, DC USA; 2, San Francisco, USA; 3, Chicago, USA; 4, Los Angeles, USA; 5, Las Vegas, USA; 6, New York, USA; 7, Manchester, UK; 8, Philadelphia, USA; 9, Edinburgh, UK; 10, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Click HERE to see the full survey.