Friendliest Cities in the World 2026: Mérida Tops the List, Delhi Among the Lowest-Ranked

The Mexican city of Mérida has emerged as the winner of the Friendliest Cities Index 2026, whereas the Indian city of Delhi has made it to the list of the ten least friendly cities in the index. The research has been carried out by travel platform Fernwayer and involved the analysis of over 1.2 million comments on Reddit related to 200 cities in order to find out what travelers have said about the friendliness of their residents.

Top 10 Friendliest Cities in the World 2026

In this list, Merida topped the list with a score of 95 out of 100 and placed ahead of cities like Glasgow and Bogota. There are also cities from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and the USA were included in the list.

Delhi One of the Lowest-Scoring Cities

Delhi managed to get a score of 43.6, putting it among the top 10 lowest scoring cities in this study. Argentina’s Buenos Aires scored lowest with 42.0, followed by Los Angeles with 42.2 and Madrid with 42.5.

Some other low scoring cities cited in the report include Paris with 42.9, Milan with 43.0 and Barcelona with 43.4.

These scores indicate how travelers described their experiences online. This does not mean that people from these cities are inherently unfriendly, nor does it necessarily mean that the experience of people coming to these places for business purposes is similar.

How Was the Friendliest Cities Index 2026 Developed?

The Friendliest Cities Index 2026 is a project initiated by Fernwayer, which is a platform for travel. The report states that the research used more than 1.2 million Reddit comments that referred to 200 cities.

These comments were analyzed based on descriptions of residents’ behavior and interactions in terms of friendly, hospitable and welcoming attitudes, as well as negative ones like rudeness and unfriendly.

Limitations of the Ranking

This ranking is based on perception of friendliness from online discussions, but not from surveys conducted with each and every citizen and visitor to the cities. It is true that Reddit users may not represent all the visitors to the cities, and perception may get shaped by personal experiences, culture and the nature of travel.

Thus, this ranking needs to be taken as analysis of perceptions of travelers and not as a scientific evaluation of the personality of the citizens of the city.

Why Did Secondary Cities Fare Better Than Major Capitals?

An interesting observation from the report was that small or secondary cities were often rated higher than their famous counterparts.

Some of the examples cited in the report are,

• Glasgow vs Edinburgh: Glasgow was ranked second while Edinburgh was ranked 157th.
• Manchester vs London: Manchester was ranked fifth while London was ranked 162nd.
• Perth vs Sydney: Perth was ranked seventh while Sydney was ranked 171st.

In addition, the report indicated that in nine out of the 10 countries that had two cities each in this study, the capital city had the worst ranking among the cities.