A stroll through Sydney’s streets reveals excellent cafes, bookshops and world-famous beaches but it might not immediately seem like a place for art aficionados. While it may not have the reputation of Melbourne when it comes to street art (although we did beat them for having some of the best coffee in the world recently), there are plenty of hidden artworks in laneways and delightfully decorated spots that are worth checking out specifically for the art and mammoth cultural events like Vivid Sydney have elevated this further. Our underrated but mighty street art scene has now been named among the very best in the world beating heavyweights like Montreal and Lisbon which are well known for their eclectic art scene.
Best street art in the world
The study conducted by Betway evaluated over 132 cities for street art and Sydney made the top 10 at number 8. Melbourne made the list at number 3 only behind Paris and London and was lauded for having the highest number of murals on the list, around 2,317 eclectic pieces of art.
The study looked at a number of metrics for the list including the number of identified street art murals, the number of Instagram posts, the number of TikTok posts, the number of articles with city and street art mentioned, engagement with articles (likes, comments, and shares) and average yearly Google searches. Based on this, the following cities were named the street art capitals of the world:
1. Paris
2. London
3. Melbourne
4. Berlin
5. Los Angeles
6. New York City
7. Amsterdam
8. Sydney
9. Montreal
10. Lisbon
According to the study, Sydney has about 1,174 art pieces scattered around the city. If you’re keen to start exploring but not sure where to look, start with these hidden laneway gems.
Check out the full list here.