Every city has its good bits and bad bits. Some areas date back centuries, some are just a bit naff, and some are the sorts of places that force you to consider uprooting your life and moving tomorrow.
At , our team of editors and writers know their cities inside and out – the good, the bad, and the ‘I can’t believe I’ve never been here before!’ Our annual list of the coolest neighborhoods in the world is curated by writers across the globe, and – now on its eighth year running – the 2025 ranking has just revealed that the winning neighbourhood this year is in Japan.
In order to gain a spot on the list, each neighborhood had to be personally nominated by a local expert. Then, they were all rankaed against a variety of criteria including culture, community, liveability, nightlife, food and drink, street life and ‘that hard-to-define sense of nowness’ according to ’s travel editor Grace Beard. And although there’s a huge spectrum of cities represented, each neighbourhood shares ‘a DIY spirit – and an unshakeable proclivity for ingenuity and fun’.
Last year, Nortre-Dame-Du-Mont in Marseille came out on top for its artsy charm and host of great places to eat, and the year before that was Laureles in Medellín, Colombia.
And the coolest neighborhood in the world for 2025 is (drumroll, please…) Jimbōchō in Tokyo! This little corner of the city is an escape from the nearby urban metropolis, described by Tokyo writer Shota Nagao as the ‘hangout of choice for generations of Tokyo intellectuals’.
Jimbōchō is perhaps best known for its abundance of boutique bookshops – 130 of them in fact. Most of them specialise in second-hand books, and are ‘housed in low, slightly antiquated mixed-use buildings’. Just make sure to come early, as the stores tend to close early.
Generations co-exist here, with students and elderly people reading, sipping coffee, and eating lunch side by side. A wealth of delicious curry houses were also noted by Nagao as a highlight. Ultimately, this is a place where ‘the past vividly informs the present’ with an ‘energetic undercurrent’, and it’s definitely got that sense of ‘now’ that entries on this list need.
In second place was Borgerhout in Antwerp, Belgium’s second city. According to local writer Sarah Schug, ‘the vibe is unpretentious and collaborative’, and ‘it’s Borgerhout’s residents that make it one of Antwerp’s most vibrant and welcoming corners’. Barra Funda, the ‘alternative soul’ of São Paulo, rounded out the top three.
If there’s somewhere you think deserved to win, have a look at last year’s list to see if it featured.
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