Editor’s note: This article was first published in February 2014; despite the “2014 ranking” title, its visitor figures appear to be annual international arrivals from around 2011, so every figure and position in the table is out of date.
Which countries in the world receive the largest number of tourists each year? The website Movehub has mapped the number of annual visitors received by each of 165 countries, based on data from World Statistics.
The difference between first place (France) and second (the US) is almost 20 million tourists. China comes third, and Spain is in fourth place, which is not bad at all. Below we list the top 50 countries.
Top 50 most popular countries with visitors
| Rank | Country | Annual visitors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | France | 81,400,000 |
| 2 | United States | 62,700,000 |
| 3 | China | 57,600,000 |
| 4 | Spain | 56,700,000 |
| 5 | Italy | 46,100,000 |
| 6 | Turkey | 34,000,000 |
| 7 | United Kingdom | 29,300,000 |
| 8 | Germany | 28,400,000 |
| 9 | Russian Federation | 24,900,000 |
| 10 | Malaysia | 24,700,000 |
| 11 | Mexico | 23,400,000 |
| 12 | Austria | 23,000,000 |
| 13 | Hong Kong SAR, China | 22,300,000 |
| 14 | Ukraine | 21,400,000 |
| 15 | Thailand | 19,200,000 |
| 16 | Saudi Arabia | 17,500,000 |
| 17 | Greece | 16,400,000 |
| 18 | Canada | 16,000,000 |
| 19 | Poland | 13,400,000 |
| 20 | Macao SAR, China | 12,900,000 |
| 21 | Netherlands | 11,300,000 |
| 22 | Singapore | 10,400,000 |
| 23 | Hungary | 10,300,000 |
| 24 | Croatia | 9,900,000 |
| 25 | Korea, Rep. | 9,800,000 |
| 26 | Egypt, Arab Rep. | 9,500,000 |
| 27 | Morocco | 9,300,000 |
| 28 | Czech Republic | 8,800,000 |
| 29 | Switzerland | 8,500,000 |
| 30 | South Africa | 8,300,000 |
| 31 | Indonesia | 7,700,000 |
| 32 | Ireland | 7,600,000 |
| 33 | Romania | 7,600,000 |
| 34 | Belgium | 7,500,000 |
| 35 | Denmark | 7,400,000 |
| 36 | Portugal | 7,300,000 |
| 37 | Bahrain | 6,700,000 |
| 38 | Bulgaria | 6,300,000 |
| 39 | India | 6,300,000 |
| 40 | Japan | 6,200,000 |
| 41 | Vietnam | 6,000,000 |
| 42 | Australia | 5,900,000 |
| 43 | Argentina | 5,700,000 |
| 44 | Brazil | 5,400,000 |
| 45 | Sweden | 5,000,000 |
| 46 | Norway | 5,000,000 |
| 47 | Tunisia | 4,800,000 |
| 48 | Dominican Republic | 4,300,000 |
| 49 | Finland | 4,200,000 |
| 50 | Jordan | 4,000,000 |
Further reading
Featured image: Irene Ledyaeva ireneledyaeva, CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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