From James Joyce's "Ulysses" to JP Donleavy's "The Ginger Man," Ireland's capital is the setting for a number of well-known literary works, making Dublin one of the most written-about cities in Europe.
Great bustling cities make the perfect backdrop for novels. And for many, books can act as literary passports, whisking readers across the globe from the comfort of home.
Aura Print sought to determine the most popular European cities within the realm of literature. Their experts combed through Google Books, which has a vast repository of 25 million books, to identify the cumulative mentions of 31 prominent European cities across books spanning from 1920 to 2019.
Dublin ranks as the ninth most written-about European city, according to the study.
From its iconic cobblestoned pathways to the breathtaking coastline, Dublin has often been at the heart of the plot, amassing a respectable 15,021,998 literary mentions.
The top spot on the list goes to London, which beat all its European counterparts by a landslide. Being featured an astonishing 286,675,501 times, this is nearly three times more than all other cities analyzed. Dubbed by Charles Dickens as the ‘magic lantern’ that fired his creativity, the British capital has played host to a multitude of novels over the last century.
Next in the ranking is the French capital, Paris, with a mindblowing 95,290,475 literary mentions. The romantic and intriguing City of Lights has charmed and inspired a plethora of romance and fiction authors.
Rome, the Eternal City, claims the third spot on the list with 48,840,949 mentions, followed by Berlin with a significant 37,079,709 mentions in books.
10 most popular European cities in books:
1. London
2. Paris
3. Rome
4. Berlin
5. Moscow
6. Florence
7. Vienna
8. Athens
9. Dublin
10. Amsterdam
For the complete data of all 31 European cities analyzed, please click here.
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