Not London or Tokyo: two U.S. cities among top three noisiest in the world, new study reveals

If you, like me, live in a bustling city, you’ll know that noise is part of the urban package. The horns, the chatter, the music leaking from street buskers or late-night bars. Some of it’s atmospheric. Some of it’s the reason you’re searching Amazon for earplugs at 2 a.m. But how do the various urban sprawls around the world compare?

Well, a new ranking of the world’s 30 loudest cities shows that while places like London and Tokyo get plenty of attention, it’s New York and Los Angeles that lead the U.S. charge in the global noise league, both on the podium and one leading the way.

Which city is officially the loudest?

The study scored cities on traffic congestion, noise pollution levels, population density, nightlife, and tourist numbers. New York took the top spot worldwide, with a near-perfect score of 134 out of 150.The constant wail of sirens, screech of subway brakes and an unblinking nightlife make its soundscape relentless, even though its population density is lower than some European capitals.

Los Angeles, often associated with wide boulevards and palm-lined calm, landed in third place with a score of 108. It’s not crowds that drive the decibels here but the car culture – miles of gridlocked freeways, engines revving, and the thrum of helicopters. As I see it, you could live ten miles from downtown and still feel like you’re parked next to an idling bus.

Rank
City
Country
Population per sq km
Tourists per sq km
Noise pollution
Traffic time
Nightlife
Total /150

1New YorkUnited States3028291928134
2BarcelonaSpain283022626112
3Los AngelesUnited States925252920108
4LondonUnited Kingdom1820182130107
5IstanbulTurkey228232722102
6DelhiIndia2515243010101
7ParisFrance2126201830100
8Mexico CityMexico221224281399
9BangkokThailand202419232098
10MoscowRussia181025291597
11RomeItaly162818192596
12TokyoJapan151917242196
13BeijingChina17826301394
14BerlinGermany131616202792
15AmsterdamNetherlands122215142891
16São PauloBrazil141121261890
17DubaiUnited Arab Emirates102714162289
18SydneyAustralia92112172584
19Buenos AiresArgentina111413182379
20SingaporeSingapore82010121969
21TorontoCanada7139111757
22SeoulSouth Korea6158101554
23JohannesburgSouth Africa59791242
24RiyadhSaudi Arabia48681036
25JakartaIndonesia3757931
26BangkokThailand3757931
27Cape TownSouth Africa3757931
28ZurichSwitzerland2646826
29BogotáColombia2535722
30SantiagoChile1424617

As you can see from the table above, Barcelona sits between the two Americans, powered less by traffic and more by sheer human activity. Its compact old town and beach districts funnel the sound of festivals, street music and late-night conversation straight to residents’ windows.

If there’s a takeaway, it’s that size and density aren’t everything when it comes to urban noise – infrastructure, nightlife, and cultural habits can make even a spread-out city roar.

Maybe the healthy image provided by the moniker ‘The Big Apple’ should be changed to ‘The Noisy Donut‘. OK, maybe not.