Spotted by Locals cities (many of which are in one of the categories) are linked, if you want to check our latest tips for those cities. Here’s a list with the latest data from 2018 (GAWC hasn’t done a study in 2020 yet). We believe that many popular cities are suffering from overtourism, so we encourage people to get off the beaten path and discover some less-known hidden gems. While we do have guides dedicated to larger cities like London and New York, we take pride in the fact that we write about lots of less-visited cities as well, like those you’ll see lower down this list. The cultural and economic factors of “our” cities are important to us, of course. Beta and Gamma cities are smaller global cities that link economic regions into the global network. Alpha cities are the primary nodes in the global economic network.

Many factors are taken into account in this analysis, including cultural and political influence, although economic factors are the most important consideration. It is considered the leading institute ranking the world’s cities.Ĭities are categorized as Alpha, Beta or Gamma cities based on their connectivity to the rest of the world. Every few years, important global economic cities are ranked by the Globalization and World Rankings Research Institute.

Alpha-level global cities 2016