please empty your brain below
I wonder what sort of data wrangling you could do if you'd surveyed all 100, rather than 'how far down the list can you go'. I was tripped up by Coventry (9), but have been to Bracknell (93) and a liberal scattering of the towns in between.

I guess where people have visited may also depend on where they're starting - coming from Glasgow, we were far more likely to visit places in the North of England than further south.

martin | 14.01.21 - 7:20 a.m. | #

Liverpool is perhaps the only place on the list where I made a very conscious decision to visit. Most of the others were because of family, friends, work, university, events etc, or being nearby.

Alan | 14.01.21 - 7:43 a.m. | #

If I’d asked How many of these 100 have you been to?, I’d have got far fewer responses.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 14.01.21 - 7:59 a.m. | #

I've hit some of the less obvious ones - Stoke, Northampton, as well as Leicester and Coventry - solely by boat.

Sarah | Homepage | 14.01.21 - 8:11 a.m. | #

DG,
I couldn't resist it. I copied your Google MyMaps. Added a column to the data table with population in thousands. And replotted your maps using the style by data column option. Since you earlier gave populations for only top 50 cities, the bottom 50 cities had no values. Google MyMaps allow setting how many buckets you wanted in the range, I chose 5, but I didn't change the default symbol.

Screenshot: here
Modified MyMaps: here

sabre23t | Homepage | 14.01.21 - 8:37 a.m. | #

I can't say I agree with your assertion that Birmingham isn't iconic or "packed with interest". As the city of a thousand trades it's immensely historic, it appears at several points in the story of the development of the steam engine and the history of the Industrial Revolution. The city fathers have a tradition of progressive ideas that extends as far back as Joe Chamberlain if not further.

Also I get the impression that many of the cities most visited are on major rail routes.

It might be the ease of access means more people visit - or it's just that the busier, bigger cities that people are more likely to visit are more likely to be better served by rail.

Medford | 14.01.21 - 8:38 a.m. | #

Inspired by looking at the geographical distribution on the map, I had a look at which of the top 100 are listed in the song "It's Grim Up North", and it turns out 19 are.

I've been to 45% of the non-grim towns and cities but only 26% of the grim ones so I'm going to blame that.

lockedintheattic | 14.01.21 - 9:40 a.m. | #

It’s interesting to compare this with this nice page on Wikipedia which summarises historical rankings of towns by population in various periods.

Alan | 14.01.21 - 9:43 a.m. | #

Interesting from that link to see that the big gap around the Fens historically did have some relatively big towns - Wisbech, Kings Lynn, Spalding & Boston all feature at different times

lockedintheattic | 14.01.21 - 9:58 a.m. | #

The number has already been recorded so it probably doesn't matter me saying this, but I did go to Bristol, just not into the city centre. I was there for the Balloon Fiesta, which is held on some open land on the south side of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, but it's still Bristol. In that case, the next largest unvisited city would probably be Southampton. I want to say I've been to Newcastle when I was very young; I definitely remember visiting Morpeth and South Shields so it's pretty likely I went to Newcastle.

TheLupineOne | 14.01.21 - 10:24 a.m. | #

A factor affecting the statistics could be that anyone who hasn't been to London, and isn't interested in London, does not read your blog.

I am surprised that Bristol is the fourth biggest. It must include a lot of suburbs whereas, for examples, Manchester is split into several places, and Birmingham doe not include Solihull.

kev | 14.01.21 - 10:50 a.m. | #

Inspired by your Random Boroughs jam jar I considered making a Random Counties jam jar so I could pick a county and explore all there is to see and do within it over the course of either a week or long weekend.

I have a whole pile of research ready to go, but for one reason or another (mainly having to rely on my husband's driving license!) it has never happened.

Cornish Cockney | 14.01.21 - 11:08 a.m. | #

Colchester; Change my mind ;P

dg writes: Best read the linked post.

R2 | 14.01.21 - 11:53 a.m. | #

I'd love to see the same population numbers for each city 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200 years ago. It would probably be too difficult to find reliable numbers though.

dg writes: See Alan's comment at 9.43am

Blue Witch | Homepage | 14.01.21 - 12:01 p.m. | #

RE: Colchester - now I've read the 2015 post I realise I've been to Bourne Mill, but had no idea it was in Colchester (I was a passenger on a day trip from somewhere nearby).

R2 | 14.01.21 - 12:06 p.m. | #

DG, I wonder if looking at the responses for each city as a proportion of who is remaining would give an interesting and meaningful insight.

For example, 16 people out of the eligible 112 (120 - 8) hadn't been to Liverpool, about 14.2%. However there were only 85 people remaining to answer if they had been to Sheffield, and 12 out of 85 is about 14.1%.

I now realise that you mentioned this %age for Stoke, but would be interesting to see the rest of the data broken down like this.

Harry | Homepage | 14.01.21 - 12:48 p.m. | #

Newcastle may be the first one nobody stopped at here but I'm one who stopped higher up the list and it's one of only two of the top 14 that I've never visited. The nearest I got was when travelling by coach from Edinburgh to London and there was stop in Newcastle with some recovery/leg-stretching time but a coach stop in the small hours of the morning isn't the most enticing tourist attraction.

Tim Roll-Pickering | 14.01.21 - 12:48 p.m. | #

As a percentage of those who got that far...

London - 0%
Birmingham - 7%
Liverpool - 14%
Bristol - 9%
Manchester - 2%
Sheffield - 14%
Leeds - 7%
Leicester - 9%
Coventry - 8%
Bradford - 16%
Nottingham - 2%
Hull - 21%
Newcastle - 0%
Stoke - 11%

Hull was the biggest unvisited city, proportionally speaking, followed by Bradford and then Liverpool and Sheffield.

But, given that some people can't correctly remember whether they've been to Bristol or not, I wouldn't read too much into this :)

diamond geezer | Homepage | 14.01.21 - 1:07 p.m. | #

I checked how many of the top 50 I'd visited (72%) and then how many of the whole 100 (54%)

ap | 14.01.21 - 1:36 p.m. | #

For anyone that hasn't been, I recommend a visit to Kingston upon Hull - even though it's a pain to get to, as I did, on public transport.
It's most likely even better now that the multiple infrastructure improvements that scarred the centre during its City of Culture period must have been completed.

Frank F | 14.01.21 - 2:35 p.m. | #

I wish I'd left a comment yesterday now! I'd have been part of the group that stopped by Bristol. It would be interesting to know (she hesitates) how many visits were work or play, which cities are seen as holiday destinations and which cities for whatever reasons are not. For me - I live in London, Birmingham was a work visit, Liverpool was a holiday.

Jayne | 14.01.21 - 5:10 p.m. | #

Norwich is the Top 100 English town furthest from any other Top 100 English town
(it's 40 miles from Ipswich).

diamond geezer | Homepage | 14.01.21 - 9:57 p.m. | #

I thought Plymouth and Exeter were further apart than Ipswich and Norwich, but that may be direct line vs road distance

Rich (no not that one, the other one) | 14.01.21 - 10:25 p.m. | #

Checked list. I have visited all of these towns and cities, some as early as when trolleybuses were running and also in recent years to visit Wetherspoons pubs.

JOHN PARKIN | 14.01.21 - 10:40 p.m. | #

It is interesting to see differing reactions over ‘boring places’ - notably from people who live in them. Southampton, Stoke and Leicester were mentioned, yet I have discovered some gems in such places. There’s always something surprising or intriguing. Except maybe in Hatfield, but let me know...

Herbof | 14.01.21 - 11:28 p.m. | #

Sorry this is late but I needed to research my answer. A good place for population statistics is the Geographist website which has a list of the top 1000 towns and cities in the UK. Like some other people posting comments I spent my younger days chasing buses, trains and ferries and later exploring counties by car to see what I could see of interest. Using the Geographist list and excluding Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland and some suburbs of Manchester and in the Black Country I have found my largerst unvisited town to be Rushden, position 283. I am now drawing up a list of my must visits.

Alan S | 15.01.21 - 8:37 a.m. | #

If, like me, you've never seen that site before:
thegeographist.com

MartinO'Holcombe | 15.01.21 - 9:14 a.m. | #

kev - the population figures shown for Bristol do include much of urban "Greater Bristol" outside the City boundary - Filton, Bradley Stoke, Kingswood, etc. The northern boundary is considered to the the M4 not the city boundary.

Colly | 15.01.21 - 9:50 a.m. | #

'Thanks for letting us know...' might suggest that DG is assisted by a team of scriptwriters.

David Cook | 15.01.21 - 11:43 a.m. | #











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