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Got 1 min? Mexico City ranked the best city for culture in the world

Cat Rainsford
By Cat Rainsford
1
With 182 museums, you could spend a decade getting to know all of the art and history collections in Mexico City. (Daniel Augusto/Cuartoscuro)

Mexico City tops the list of the world’s best cities for culture, according to a Time Out magazine ranking that surveyed 21,000 city-dwellers around the globe.

The Time Out methodology involved quizzing locals on their city’s best cultural attractions, then asking them to score its overall cultural offering on quality and affordability.

The National Cinematheque in southern Mexico City is a symbol of the city’s cultural scene. (Denisse Hernández Rubio/Cuartoscuro)

Mexico City came out triumphant, leading a Top 10 list of cities that also included Prague, Cape Town, Buenos Aires, Athens, Edinburgh, Vienna, Madrid, Florence and Melbourne.

CDMX residents heaped praise on the city’s museum scene which, according to the capital government’s listing, now includes a whopping 182 museums, spanning all subjects from pre-Columbian archaeology, to contemporary art, to planetary science.

Many of these museums are either permanently free or offer free entry on Sundays to Mexican residents, and several are housed in spectacular buildings that are attractions in themselves, including the neo-baroque Palacio de Bellas Artes and the ultra-modern Museo Soumaya.

Residents of CDMX also called attention to the capital’s unique street parades, variety of quirky, colonial and modern architecture, and its theater scene.

“What captivates me most is the diversity and vitality of the arts scene,” said Mauricio Nava, editor at Time Out Mexico City. In particular, he highlighted the Kurimanzutto contemporary art gallery in San Miguel Chapultepec, the iconic Frida Kahlo Museum in Coyoacán, and the Festival del Centro music, theater and dance event in April.

“CDMX is always redefining the boundaries of creativity, and that’s what makes it so vibrant,” Nava concluded.

Mexico City is not the only Mexican destination to top global travel lists. Last year, Time Out ranked Guadalajara’s Colonia Americana district as the coolest neighborhood in the world, and readers of Condé Nast Traveler magazine voted San Miguel de Allende the world’s best small city – for the fifth time.

Mexico News Daily

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