Think your favorite city is picture-perfect? It might secretly be one of the dirtiest places on Earth. And this is the part most travelers never check before booking a flight.
The world’s “dirtiest” cities, revealed
A global analysis has flagged Budapest, Hungary, as the dirtiest city in the world, with several other popular tourist hotspots close behind. The rankings come from a study by Radical Storage, a luggage storage company that dug into what travelers actually say in their reviews.
In a twist that may shock Italy lovers, four Italian favorites—Rome, Florence, Milan, and Verona—landed in the global top ten dirtiest cities. That means nearly half of the top slots are taken by destinations many people consider dream vacations. But here’s where it gets controversial: some tourists see these cities as romantic and historic, while others see them as simply filthy.
How the “dirty city” list was created
To build the ranking, Radical Storage started with 100 cities taken from Euromonitor’s Top 100 City Destinations Index. From there, they analyzed Google reviews for each city’s ten most popular attractions, focusing specifically on words related to cleanliness.
In total, the team manually reviewed around 70,000 recent online reviews, scanning for terms like “clean” and “dirty” to understand how visitors talk about hygiene, litter, and upkeep. Instead of just counting those words, they then calculated a cleanliness score based on what percentage of cleanliness-related comments were negative, effectively measuring how often people complained about dirt, trash, or poor maintenance.
To improve reliability, they excluded any cities that didn’t have at least 100 total reviews, filtered out confusing phrases like “not clean” or “not dirty” that could flip the meaning, and restricted the analysis to English-language reviews. This approach makes the list more consistent—but it also opens up a big debate: does analyzing only English reviews really reflect what the whole world thinks about these cities?
Budapest: beautiful but grimy?
Budapest tops the list as the world’s dirtiest city, with more than 37.9% of cleanliness-related reviews describing issues such as dirt, rubbish, or neglected public spaces. That means over one in three people who commented on cleanliness had something negative to say.
According to the analysis, part of the problem may be that the city’s waste management systems are struggling to keep up with a surge in tourism. Hungary’s tourism sector has grown significantly, and Budapest alone reportedly saw a double-digit percentage increase in visitors compared with the same month a year earlier. When a city becomes a tourism magnet, its streets, public areas, and infrastructure can quickly become overwhelmed if cleaning and maintenance don’t scale up at the same pace.
This raises a tricky question: is Budapest truly “dirtier,” or simply under more pressure from visitor numbers than its services can handle?
Rome: iconic, loved… and littered
Rome, the Eternal City and a bucket-list destination for millions, ranks second with 35.7% of cleanliness-related reviews mentioning dirt or grime. In other words, more than a third of visitors who commented on cleanliness felt compelled to mention a problem.
The city’s reputation for being messy is so widespread that there are entire online discussion threads devoted to its litter, overflowing trash cans, and general street filth. Many visitors describe a painful contrast: stunning architecture and history overshadowed by rubbish piling up in public spaces. Some even share images that look more like makeshift landfills than postcard-perfect piazzas.
The situation has at times become so severe that the trash has reportedly attracted wild animals, including wild boars, drawn in by easy access to discarded food. That’s not just an aesthetic issue; it becomes a public health and safety concern, and it fuels heated debate about whether local authorities are doing enough to manage waste and enforce cleanliness.
Las Vegas: when 24/7 fun gets messy
Las Vegas, the American entertainment capital, comes in as the third dirtiest city on the list, with 35.7% of cleanliness-related reviews skewing negative. For a city that markets itself as glamorous and high-energy, that’s a jarring statistic.
The report links much of the problem to the city’s nonstop nightlife and massive visitor turnover. When a destination runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, keeping every street, tunnel, and public area spotless becomes an enormous logistical challenge. Local clean-up initiatives—such as organized efforts to clear storm drains, tunnels, streets, and parks—show that the city is aware of the issue and trying to respond.
Some travelers, however, paint a much harsher picture in their reviews, describing the Las Vegas Strip as dirty, chaotic, and at times even unsafe. Complaints often mention human waste, heavy drug use in public areas, and aggressive panhandling, turning what some expect to be a glamorous experience into something far more unsettling. But here’s where it gets controversial: are these isolated bad experiences, or a true reflection of the city’s overall condition?
Other “dirty” favorites: Florence, Paris, and more
Rounding out the top five are Florence and Paris—two cities many people associate with art, romance, and culture rather than overflowing trash bins. Their inclusion highlights how popularity alone doesn’t guarantee a polished, clean environment.
Here are the ten cities that ranked as the dirtiest based on the share of negative cleanliness-related reviews:
- Budapest, Hungary – 37.9% of cleanliness-related reviews were negative
- Rome, Italy – 35.7%
- Las Vegas, US – 35.7%
- Florence, Italy – 29.6%
- Paris, France – 28.2%
- Milan, Italy – 26.8%
- Verona, Italy – 26.2%
- Frankfurt, Germany – 24.6%
- Brussels, Belgium – 24.4%
- Cairo, Egypt – 23.6%
Notice the pattern? Several of these places are iconic tourist magnets. That invites a provocative question: are they dirty because local systems fail, or because global tourism overwhelms even the best-run cities?
The cleanest cities: where travelers rave
It’s not all doom and gloom for globetrotters. The same study also highlighted cities that earned overwhelmingly positive comments about cleanliness, giving travelers options if they prioritize spotless streets and well-maintained public areas.
Here are the ten cleanest cities in the world according to the share of positive cleanliness-related reviews:
- Krakow, Poland – 98.5% of cleanliness-related reviews used positive language
- Sharjah, United Arab Emirates – 98%
- Singapore – 97.9%
- Warsaw, Poland – 97.8%
- Doha, Qatar – 97.4%
- Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – 96.9%
- Prague, Czech Republic – 96.4%
- Muscat, Oman – 96.4%
- Dubai, United Arab Emirates – 96.3%
- Fukuoka, Japan – 96.3%
These numbers suggest that in these cities, almost every traveler who talks about cleanliness has something good to say. Many of them are known for strict public rules, strong infrastructure, or cultural norms that emphasize order and tidiness. And this is the part most people miss: what some visitors praise as “clean and organized,” others might experience as overly strict, heavily policed, or even lacking in spontaneity.
A few big questions for travelers
Rankings like these can change how people see their favorite destinations—but they also raise tough questions:
- Should a city’s “dirtiness” ranking affect whether you visit, or is it just one factor among many?
- Are tourists partly responsible for the mess in the very cities they love to photograph and post about?
- Do you think it’s fair to judge entire cities based mainly on English-language reviews from top attractions?
Now the controversial part is over to you: have you visited any of these cities, and do you agree with their place on these lists—or do you think the rankings are exaggerated and unfair? Share your experience and your hot takes in the comments—do these cities deserve their “dirty” or “clean” reputations, or is the story much more complicated?
