A Canadian city was just named one of the friendliest in the world
It’s a good week for the fine folks in Montreal.
Not only has the major Canadian hub been crowned one of the 10 best big cities in the world by Condé Nast Traveler, but it has also now received another accolade: one of the friendliest cities in the world.
The international recognition comes from travel marketplace Fernwayer, which recently released The Friendliest Cities Index 2026.
The company analyzed over 1.2 million Reddit comments across hundreds of travel and city-related groups to come up with the global ranking, where Montreal placed 12th out of 200.
“Our findings revealed that many of the friendliest cities turned out to be lesser-known places within their own countries, quietly outscoring the larger capitals travelers flock to,” Fernwayer states.
Montreal’s position in The Friendliest Cities Index 2026 was due to receiving 92.5 per cent positive comments online and a net promoter score of 85. The city’s overall friendliness score came out to 92.5.
Meanwhile, the province’s capital, Quebec City, didn’t fare so well. It landed in 93rd place, but hopefully no one takes the ranking too personally.
Other Canadian cities that trailed further are Vancouver in 170th place and Toronto all the way towards the bottom in 184th place. Ouch.
But, as CEO and co-founder of Fernwayer Alok Singh puts it, every city is still friendly despite where it lands on the scale.
“Even in the biggest cities, you can find warmth and friendliness and ‘welcomingness’ as we call it, but you often need someone to bring you inside that,” he says. Experiencing it often means finding a way beyond the surface-level interactions of everyday city life.
While no Canadian city cracked the top 10, coming close is still an impressive feat.
MĂ©rida, Mexico, took the crown in 2026 with an overall friendliness score of 9. Glasgow, Scotland, and BogotĂĄ, Colombia, round out the top three.
On the flip side, the company also analyzed data to determine which cities were the least friendly in the world.
Luckily, Canada is nowhere near this particular ranking.
Some interesting findings, though: Cape Town, South Africa bears the burden of being labeled the most unfriendly city in the world, and three massive U.S. cities â Miami, Las Vegas and Los Angeles â are among the top 10.
“Some of these cities are among the worldâs most-visited, and in places absorbing tens of millions of visitors a year, many travelers described exchanges as rushed, impersonal or transactional,” reads the report.
The complete Friendliest Cities Index 2026 can be found online.