Here's the actual list: http://www.worldcitiescultureforum.com/indicators/number-bookshops-100000-population http://www.worldcitiescultureforum.com/indicators/

Here's the actual list: http://www.worldcitiescultureforum.com/indicators/number-bookshops-100000-population http://www.worldcitiescultureforum.com/indicators/number-boo... The Guardian article seems a bit exaggerated, e.g. (comparing Buenos Aires with 25 bookshops per 100,000 population): "only Hong Kong comes close, with 22 bookshops per 100,000, followed by Madrid in a distant third with just 16 and compared to a mere 10 bookshops for every 100,000 for London" Buenos Aires sounds awesome, but a factor of two isn't really all that significant. There are all sorts of random factors that can perturb such things up or down a bit, and given all those, 10 and 25 are pretty close. I'd lump London and Buenos Aires firmly in the same category (along with the other cities from the top end of the list) as "cities with a lot of bookshops for their size." Now, once you get to those places with a single small bookshop for an entire city... well... that's a bit worrying...