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We can't always jet off to distant cities for amazing food, but with the help of a new map we can at least imagine the best dishes that we would eat during our foodie travels.
"The Food Capitals of Instagram" is a cool interactive map that shows which cities around the world share the most photos of their favorite foods. From #bacon to #xiaolongbao, the map uses hashtags to reveal where foodies are showing the most Instagram love to 18 popular dishes. And some of the results of this #foodporn guide are pretty surprising. Who knew that Angelenos shared more photos of Korean bulgogi than Seoul, or that L.A. outranks Tokyo for artfully filtered Japanese katsu curry photos? Though we probably could have guessed that L.A. tops the world for burrito snapshots. Take that San Francisco and San Diego—even New York and London have you beat.
European photo-printing company Photoworld.com created the map by analyzing more than 100,000 photos taken and shared on Instagram over the period of a week. The company used the social network's open application programing interface (API) to glean the data and then created the interactive map. Circles on the map indicate where and how often people around the globe are sharing their favorite foods, with the circles increasing in size for more shares. By clicking on an icon for each hashtagged food item, the map changes to show where that particular dish is #trending.
While the map reveals that some dishes are expectedly tagged most often in their countries of origin—pierogis are killing it in Poland and poutine dominates in Canada—it also shows that other dishes travel well. Sushi is shared most in New York (L.A. is #2), banh mi is biggest in Melbourne and New York beats out all of Italy for pizza pics. And it turns out that Londoners love sharing photos of burgers more than 'Mericans. Of course, many of these far flung foodie favorites might be explained people being more inclined to obsess over a dish from another country that isn't an everyday meal or maybe homesick ex-pats. But, whatever the reason, it's fun to see all of the global overlaps in food trends. Who knows where you might find yourself traveling the next time you hashtag your newest favorite food?
From bacon to sushi, discover the popularity of the world’s favourite foods on Instagram. Click image to open interactive version (via
).
