Cape Town Takes 5th Place in the World's Best Cities for Culture!

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London, Paris, New York, Berlin…Cape Town! That’s the top five for culture in the world.

Cape Town, South Africa (15 May 2026) – Time Out has just released its annual ranking of the world’s best cities for culture, and Cape Town has landed at the top in 5th place, sitting alongside Melbourne, São Paulo, Madrid, Florence, and 15 other incredible cities from around the globe.

The only cities ahead of her are London, Paris, New York City, and Berlin.

To put together the list, Time Out surveyed 24,000 locals across more than 150 cities, asking them to rate the quality and affordability of their culture scene, from comedy and carnivals to live music and literature.

Those results were then combined with the insights of Time Out’s global culture panel of editors, writers, and local experts. Only the highest-scoring city per country made the final cut.

Capetonians were overwhelmingly proud of what their city has to offer culturally. An impressive 84 percent of locals gave their city’s art and culture scene a thumbs up, while 60 percent rated it as affordable. When asked what Cape Town does best, 57 percent pointed to festivals and 59 percent to live music.

In its ‘why’ for the Mother City earning her keep in culture, TimeOut name-checked the Zeitz MOCAA, Norval Foundation, the Cape Town Philharmonic, the Labia, Baxter, Artscape, the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, and First Thursdays – the city’s monthly free art crawl.

This latest ranking is just the most recent in a series of global nods. Earlier this year, Cape Town was named the world’s most beautiful city and ranked 6th overall on Time Out’s list of the world’s 50 best cities. The Labia Theatre earned a spot on Time Out’s list of the world’s 100 greatest cinemas. And two Western Cape beaches ranked 1st and 2nd in the world’s most popular beaches.

The full Time Out ranking of the world’s best cities for culture: