Maps

Mapped: A Snapshot of the Airbnb Landscape in Three Megacities

Published

6 months ago

December 9, 2022

Preyash Shah

Featured Creator

Article/Editing:

Carmen Ang

map of every airbnb listing in paris, london and new york

Visualizing the Airbnb Landscape in Three Megacities

Since its inception in 2008, Airbnb has grown into one of the most popular travel and short-term accommodation apps on the market.

In 2021 alone, there were more than 300 million bookings (for both accommodation and experiences) made through the app.

To visualize just how massive the Airbnb landscape has become in major cities, this graphic by Preyash Shah shows every single listing in New York, London, and Paris.

About the Data

To make this graphic, Shah used September 2022 data from insideairbnb.com, a website that pulls data directly from the Airbnb app. Once collected, the raw data was then cleaned to include active listings only fitting a few key parameters:

Any listing that did not have a review in 2022 was removed
The most expensive listings were individually checked to ensure the listing price matched the actual historical price and removed if there was a major discrepancy. This is due to inactive listings that are extremely marked up instead of de-listed

After scrubbing the data, each city’s immediate metro area was left with roughly 20,000 listings.

As the data shows, a majority of these listings were for entire apartments. Paris had the biggest share, with about 85% of listings for entire apartments rather than private or shared rooms.

This is especially interesting considering that Paris has extremely strict regulations around short-term rentals and Airbnb usage, one being that an Airbnb rental must be someone’s primary residence.

Airbnb’s Beginnings

Two co-founders of Airbnb include Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, two roommates in San Francisco.

In an act of desperation, they decided to set up and rent out a few air mattresses on the floor of their apartment to help pay their rent. Free breakfast was included with the stay, and after getting $80 a night for each mattress, Chesky and Gebbia knew they were onto something.

Yet, while Airbnb has shown great success over the last decade, it’s received its fair share of criticism from skeptics. Because of concerns over housing supply and price gouging, many cities have put restrictions around the use of Airbnb, or even outright banned the platform.

Like other technology companies, Airbnb has had a challenging year in the stock market. Once valued at $113 billion in 2021, the company is currently sitting closer to a $60 billion market capitalization today.

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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Urbanization

Ranked: The Cities with the Most Skyscrapers in 2023

We rank the world’s leading cities with the most skyscrapers, highlighting China’s remarkable dominance in building vertically.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 18, 2023

Jeff Desjardins

Ranked: The Cities with the Most Skyscrapers in 2023

When it comes to soaring skylines and architectural marvels, no country has embraced the vertical revolution quite like China.

In this graphic, which uses data from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), we reveal the 25 cities with the most skyscrapers and supertall buildings globally.

Unsurprisingly, China’s cities dominate the list, solidifying the country’s reputation as a global powerhouse of tall buildings.

The 25 Top Cities by Skyscraper Count

Topping the charts is Hong Kong, with an impressive 657 skyscrapers, including six supertalls (buildings over 300 meters tall).

Rank	City	Country	Skyscrapers (>150m)	Supertalls (>300m)
1	Hong Kong	🇨🇳 China	657	6
2	Shenzhen	🇨🇳 China	513	16
3	New York City	🇺🇸 United States	421	16
4	Dubai	🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates	395	28
5	Guangzhou	🇨🇳 China	254	11
6	Shanghai	🇨🇳 China	250	5
7	Kuala Lumpur	🇲🇾 Malaysia	211	5
8	Chongqing	🇨🇳 China	205	5
9	Tokyo	🇯🇵 Japan	200	0
10	Wuhan	🇨🇳 China	183	5
11	Chicago	🇺🇸 United States	178	7
12	Jakarta	🇮🇩 Indonesia	160	1
13	Chengdu	🇨🇳 China	150	0
14	Bangkok	🇹🇭 Thailand	133	3
15	Shenyang	🇨🇳 China	129	3
16	Singapore	🇸🇬 Singapore	128	0
17	Nanning	🇨🇳 China	122	6
18	Mumbai	🇮🇳 India	114	0
19	Tianjin	🇨🇳 China	109	3
20	Nanjing	🇨🇳 China	108	7
21	Toronto	🇨🇦 Canada	106	0
22	Busan	🇰🇷 South Korea	106	4
23	Seoul	🇰🇷 South Korea	104	2
24	Changsha	🇨🇳 China	97	5
25	Melbourne	🇦🇺 Australia	94	1

Hong Kong, along with Shenzhen (#2), and Guangzhou (#5) are part of the burgeoning megacity known as the Pearl River Delta, which is home to over 1,500 skyscrapers. This is even more impressive when considering that Shenzhen was a small fishing village until the 1970s.

New York City secures the third position on the list, boasting an impressive tally of 421 skyscrapers. Although it may have relinquished its title to Chinese cities, the city’s skyline endures as a globally renowned symbol, prominently featuring the iconic Empire State Building. Notably, while the Empire State Building enjoys widespread familiarity, it no longer ranks among the world’s 50 tallest structures.

Rounding out the top five is Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which grabs the fourth position with 395 skyscrapers, a staggering 28 of which are supertalls. This desert oasis has become synonymous with grandiose architecture and record-breaking structures, exemplified by the Burj Khalifa, which is the world’s current tallest building at 828 meters (2,715 ft).

China’s Numbers in Context

Looking at this data from another perspective, China actually has more skyscrapers on this list than the rest of the world combined.

Country	Cities in Top 25	Skyscrapers	Supertalls
🇨🇳 China	12	2777	72
🌐 Rest of World	13	2350	67

China’s rapid urbanization, economic growth, and ambitious construction projects have fueled this impressive feat. There’s no doubt that the country’s relentless pursuit of vertical development, coupled with its booming population and thriving cities, has positioned China as the unrivaled leader in the global skyscraper race.

The Future of the Global Skyline

As the world continues to reach new heights in architectural marvels, there are even more supertall skyscrapers in the pipeline that will reshape skylines across the globe.

From the soaring Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, poised to surpass the Burj Khalifa as the world’s tallest building, to the remarkable Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, which is set to claim the title of the world’s second-tallest structure when it opens in June 2023, these projects will captivate city dwellers for years to come.

Even as these new monumental buildings rise, China’s prominence in the world of skyscrapers—with three cities in the top five globally—is likely to remain unchallenged.