The majority are found in England with top three located in London
London is known for being a popular destination among international visitors and apparently, it is equally as popular among the domestic ones. British hotel chain Premier Inn has collected almost 20,000 images of British food and landmarks on Instagram to determine which ones are the most popular.
According to the research, the three most attractive tourist destinations are all located in London. The Houses of Parliament dominates the ranking, followed by St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Tower Bridge.
Besides the results being London-centric, they are also England-centric, with eight of the ten most featured landmarks found in England. The other two are situated in Scotland: Eilean Donan Castle and Edinburgh Castle.
The most well-known landmark is Tower Bridge
Apart from finding Instagram’s most popular tourist destinations, the hotel chain asked 504 Americans and 508 Brits to identify these landmarks.
Tower Bridge is the most recognized landmark, with 94.1 percent of Brits and 64.4 percent of Americans able to identify it. More than 9 out of 10 Brits and almost 62 percent of Americans were also able to recognize the Houses of Parliament, or at least Big Ben.
On the other hand, only slightly above half of the British respondents (53.8 percent) were able to identify the iconic St. Paul’s Cathedral. One in ten Americans recognized the cathedral and three percent of the remainder thought the cathedral was the White House in Washington, D.C. and another three percent who was convinced it was St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.
Outside of the capital, the Shambles in York landed as the most recognized landmark, with 29 percent of Brits able to recognize it.
Most people would want to visit Giant’s Causeway, followed by Edinburgh Castle
From the top 20 landmarks — the best five from each of the UK’s four parts — most people are keen on visiting Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, with 53.5% of Brits and 38.1% of Americans. Edinburgh Castle is the second landmark people wished to visit and Carrick Island is the third.
In Wales, five most promoted spots were castles and ruins but none ended up too high on the popularity scale.
Top 10 British landmarks on Instagram
- Houses of Parliament, London
- St. Paul’s Cathedral, London
- Tower Bridge, London
- Eilean Donan Castle, Scottish Highlands
- Gold Hill, Shaftesbury
- Natural History Museum, London
- Durdle Door, Dorset
- Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh
- The Shambles, York
- Castle Combe, Wiltshire
