Copenhagen has surpassed Amsterdam to be named the most bicycle-friendly city in the world, according to the Copenhagenize Index 2015 – thus named, as you might have guessed, because Copenhagen is the city to aspire to in terms of being bicycle-friendly.
The index, published biennially by the urban design consultancy Copenhagenize Design Company, ranks 150 cities around the world with a population of over 600,000 (with a few exceptions) in terms of being a bicycle-friendly city.
“As with the two previous indexes, this year offers up more surprises,” the index found. “We always think we have a pretty good idea of what the results will be, but cities continue to shine brighter.”
“Copenhagen overtook Amsterdam for first place, but it’s still those two cities that dominate. The rest of the list, however, was totally shaken up. New cities took the top 20 by storm, and at the expense of others.”
Amsterdam had topped the previous indexes in 2011 and 2013, with Copenhagen coming second.
READ MORE: More Danes using bicycles
Malmö moving up
With the Danish and Dutch capitals leading the pack, Dutch city Utrecht came in third, followed by Strasbourg (France) and Eindhoven (the Netherlands).
The top 10 was rounded up by Malmö in sixth – which made strides up from ninth in 2013 – Nantes (France), Bordeaux (France), Antwerp (Belgium) and Seville (Spain).
Other notable cities on the list – which only includes the top 20 – included Berlin (12), Buenos Aires (14), Paris (17), Minneapolis (18) and Montreal (20), while Munich, Budapest, Nagoya, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro slipped out of the top 20 for this year’s edition.
