Forests are among the planet’s most important ecosystems. They store carbon, shelter much of the world’s wildlife, regulate the water cycle, and provide food, fuel, and income for billions of people. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines a forest as land covering at least half a hectare, with trees taller than five metres and a canopy shading more than ten percent of the ground. Land used for crops or built up into towns and cities does not count, even where tall plants grow on it.

By that definition, forests cover about 4.06 billion hectares, or roughly 31 percent of the world’s land, according to the FAO’s most recent global assessment. About 1.1 billion hectares of that, more than a quarter of the total, is primary forest that is largely undisturbed and dominated by native species. The cover is not spread evenly. Europe, including the vast woodlands of Russia, holds about a quarter of the world’s forest, more than any other region, while Oceania holds only about five percent. Asia carries the smallest share of any region except Oceania, even though it is by far the largest continent.

Just ten countries hold about two-thirds of the world’s forest, and more than half of it sits in only five: Russia, Brazil, Canada, the United States, and China. Russia alone accounts for roughly a fifth of the global total, and forest still covers about half of its enormous territory. At the other end of the scale, more than 90 percent of Suriname is forested, the highest share of any country. Dozens of nations sit far below that. More than a dozen have forest on less than one percent of their land, and around thirty have five percent or less. The countries with the least tree cover fall into a few clear patterns, set mostly by climate and crowding.

Small, Crowded Countries Run Out Of Room For Trees

In a handful of very small and very crowded countries, there is simply little land left for forest. Monaco, the most densely populated country on Earth, packs tens of thousands of people into about two square kilometres and has no forest at all. The Pacific island of Nauru, just 21 square kilometres, is in the same position. Two other island nations do only a little better: Kiribati and the Maldives each keep a sliver of forest, somewhere between one and three percent of their land. At this size, housing, roads, and farmland leave almost nothing for trees.

The Arid Heart Of Western And Central Asia

Asia holds only about 15 percent of the world’s forest, the smallest share of any inhabited continent apart from Oceania, even though it is the largest landmass on Earth. Much of it is dry. Some of the least forested countries anywhere lie in Western Asia, on and around the Arabian Peninsula. Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait have effectively no forest, while Saudi Arabia and Yemen sit at about one percent or less. The United Arab Emirates, at roughly five percent, is the greenest country on the peninsula. The cause is the Arabian Desert, which covers some 2.3 million square kilometres. It is the largest desert in Asia and the fourth largest in the world, and its heat gives trees almost no chance.

Central Asia tells a similar story. Forest covers under ten percent of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (each around eight to nine percent), Kyrgyzstan (about seven percent), Tajikistan (three percent), and Kazakhstan (barely one percent), and the numbers are just as low in Afghanistan (two percent) and Pakistan (under five percent) to the south. Two great deserts dominate the region: the Karakum, which covers roughly 70 percent of Turkmenistan, and the Kyzylkum, which spreads across Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

The Sahara Dominates North Africa

Africa’s forests cover about 637 million hectares, roughly a fifth of the continent’s land. The Sahara explains much of the shortfall. It is the world’s largest hot desert and the third largest desert of any kind, behind only the Antarctic and Arctic, and it sweeps across the whole of North Africa over some 9.2 million square kilometres. Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Algeria, Niger, Chad, and Tunisia all sit within or along it, and each has tree cover of five percent or less. With almost no rain and punishing heat, forests cannot take hold.

South of the Sahara lies the Sahel, a semi-arid belt about three million square kilometres wide. Its countries are greener than the desert states to the north, but several still rank among Africa’s least forested, including Mali, Sudan, South Sudan, and Eritrea. Tree cover then rises steadily as the dry land gives way to wetter savanna and tropical forest further south.

The Dry Corners Of Southern Africa

Forest is scarce in the driest parts of southern Africa as well. Namibia, wedged between the Namib and Kalahari deserts, is among the driest countries in sub-Saharan Africa and has only about eight percent forest cover, nearly all of it in the wetter north. Lesotho is a different case. It sits high in the mountains with a cool climate, yet forest covers barely one percent of its land. Poor mountain soils and a long reliance on wood for fuel and building have kept its woodlands small.

Lower-demand months work best in destinations that still have usable routes after the beach crowds, cruise peaks, or blossom-season rush fades. The trip needs walkable streets, indoor stops, food plans, museums, festivals, mild weather, or landscapes that stay accessible outside the main summer window.

Madeira gives travelers Funchal, gardens, levada walks, viewpoints, natural pools, and mild year-round temperatures. Malta keeps Valletta, Mdina, the Three Cities, temples, fortifications, countryside walks, and ferry routes in play outside peak beach season. Dubrovnik offers the Old City, walls, churches, palaces, autumn food events, and winter cultural dates after the heaviest summer traffic leaves.

Kyoto’s winter calendar includes limited-time openings at temples, shrines, and historic buildings, while spring blossoms and late-autumn foliage bring the largest visitor numbers. Seville’s cooler months make longer walks around the cathedral area, Santa Cruz, Triana, María Luisa Park, and Plaza de España easier than the hottest summer weeks.

Travelers should still check weather, ferry schedules, trail status, opening hours, festival dates, and daylight before booking. A quieter month can reduce crowd pressure, but it does not remove the need for restaurant reservations, attraction tickets, or a backup indoor plan.

1. Madeira, Portugal

Madeira has the weather profile needed for a lower-demand trip with real outdoor time. The official tourism board says the archipelago has a mild climate throughout the year, with average temperatures ranging from 15°C in winter to 25°C in summer. That range supports walking, viewpoints, gardens, natural pools, and levada routes outside the hottest months.

Funchal can cover a slower day without a car-heavy plan. Travelers can build a route around the market, old streets, cafés, the waterfront, cable cars, gardens, seafood, and ocean views. Cloudy mornings do not automatically ruin the day, but mountain weather can differ from coastal weather, so trail plans need a same-day forecast check.

The levadas and Laurissilva Forest give the island a stronger off-season case than a standard beach destination. Visit Madeira says the Laurissilva Forest has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999 and can be explored through trails and levadas.

Route choice still needs care. Some levada walks include tunnels, wet stone, narrow sections, exposure, or longer distances than casual walkers expect. Travelers should check distance, trail status, footwear, daylight, and transport before choosing a route.

2. Malta

Malta has enough history and walking routes to carry a trip outside peak swim season. VisitMalta says the islands have a favorable climate with 300 days of sunshine, mild winters, countryside walks, beaches, diving, cultural sites, Gozo, and Comino. That mix lets visitors plan around Valletta, Mdina, harbor views, prehistoric sites, and local food instead of relying only on beach weather.

Valletta can anchor the first day with museums, fortifications, churches, harbor views, cafés, and evening walks inside a compact capital. Mdina and Rabat can take another block, while the Three Cities work better with a separate harbor-focused plan. Gozo needs ferry time, so it should not be treated as a casual late-afternoon add-on.

Winter and shoulder months can bring wind, rain, and rougher sea conditions. Travelers planning Comino, boat trips, coastal walks, or Gozo should check ferry operations and the forecast before locking in a day. Indoor stops in Valletta or Mdina make useful backups.

A Malta trip outside summer should be built around culture first and swimming second. Temples, fortifications, museums, bakeries, village streets, waterfront walks, and ferry routes can fill the itinerary even when a beach day becomes a walking day.

3. Dubrovnik, Croatia

Dubrovnik’s Old City is easier to read outside the heaviest summer flow. The Dubrovnik Tourist Board describes the city as a preserved treasury and museum with Baroque, Renaissance, and Romanesque churches and palaces, including the Old City, Stradun, Rector’s Palace, Sponza Palace, St. Blaise’s Church, Orlando’s Column, historic streets, and cathedrals.

The Old City walls, Stradun, church stops, palaces, cafés, harbor edges, and museums can fill a day without summer heat controlling every hour. Lower-demand months also make narrow lanes and viewpoints easier to handle, especially for travelers who want photography, history, and food stops rather than a swim-focused itinerary.

Autumn adds a food reason to consider Dubrovnik after summer. The Dubrovnik Tourist Board says the Good Food Festival returns from October 5 to 18, 2026, with a culinary program tied to gastronomy, wine, and local food experiences.

Travelers should still check cruise schedules, museum hours, restaurant openings, and seasonal transport before booking. Some services reduce frequency outside high season, while major festivals and holiday periods can raise hotel demand even when summer beach crowds are gone.

4. Kyoto, Japan

Kyoto’s off-season case starts with avoiding the largest crowd periods. Kyoto’s official tourism FAQ says late March to early April cherry blossoms and mid-November to early December autumn foliage see the largest tourist numbers. Winter changes the trip from blossom and foliage chasing to temples, museums, food, gardens, and limited-time cultural openings.

The Kyoto Winter Special Openings give winter visitors a specific planning target. Kyoto City Tourism says the 2026 event period runs from January 9 to March 18, with venues including Kodai-ji Temple, Hōkō-ji Temple, Toyokuni-jinja Shrine, Daitoku-ji Daikō-in Temple, Kekō-ji Temple, Ninna-ji Temple, Tō-ji Temple, and others.

The same official notice says opening dates and hours vary by location. Travelers should check the individual site pages before booking a day around one temple, shrine, or historic building. Some sites may have limited hours, different admission rules, or closures tied to ceremonies or weather.

Winter Kyoto still needs cold-weather planning. Temples, gardens, and old streets can involve outdoor waiting, unheated spaces, and early sunsets. A practical winter route should group nearby sites, reserve meals where needed, and keep one indoor museum, market, or café stop available for cold or wet hours.

5. Seville, Spain

Seville rewards travelers who avoid the hottest part of the year. Andalucía’s official tourism site describes the region’s climate as warm Mediterranean, with mild winters, dry hot sunny summers, an average year-round temperature of about 18°C, and more than 300 days of sunshine per year. Cooler months allow longer walks around the cathedral area, Santa Cruz, Triana, María Luisa Park, and Plaza de España.

A lower-demand Seville day can start around the cathedral and Giralda area, continue through Santa Cruz, pause for lunch, and move toward Plaza de España or María Luisa Park later in the day. Triana can take another block with ceramics, tapas, riverside walks, and a different neighborhood route across the Guadalquivir.

Summer heat can force visitors to plan around shade, siesta hours, hydration, and shorter outdoor sections. Cooler months give travelers more usable hours for walking, photography, patios, markets, churches, and tapas without building the whole day around midday avoidance.

Major holidays, fairs, Holy Week, and local events can change prices and crowd levels even outside summer. Travelers should check the calendar before booking a supposedly quiet Seville trip, especially around spring celebrations and long weekends.

The cities with the most five star hotels are indicators of a tourism infrastructure, investment appeal and ability to attract high-spending travellers. But which cities have built the world’s biggest luxury hotel ecosystems?

Where does this data come from

For this ranking, we combined data from Euromonitor International’s Top 100 City Destinations Index with hotel inventory data from Google Hotels. Euromonitor’s annual report ranks the world’s leading urban destinations based on tourism performance, while Google Hotels aggregates listings from hotel websites, online travel agencies and booking platforms around the world.

This marks a change from our previous ranking, which relied on Booking.com listings. By using Google Hotels, which draws inventory from multiple sources rather than a single booking platform, we’re able to capture a broader snapshot of luxury hotel supply across major global destinations.

The methodology

To compile this ranking, we analysed cities from Euromonitor International’s latest list of the world’s most-visited urban destinations and recorded the number of properties classified as five-star on Google Hotels in June 2026.

Because Google Hotels aggregates inventory from hotel websites, Booking.com, Expedia and other travel providers, it offers a broader view of luxury accommodation than any single booking platform. The ranking reflects the total number of five-star hotels visible on Google Hotels at the time of analysis.

What the data says

Istanbul tops the ranking with 290 five-star hotels, comfortably ahead of Dubai, which comes in second with 233. London remains Europe’s luxury hotel capital with 185 five-star properties, while Bangkok continues to cement its reputation as one of Asia’s leading destinations for luxury travel.

India does not feature among the cities analysed here, but Delhi and Mumbai remain significant luxury hotel markets, with 60 and 48 five-star properties (respectively) catering to both domestic and international travellers.

The cities with the most five-star hotels in the world, ranked

1. Istanbul — 290 five-star hotels
2. Dubai — 233 five-star hotels
3. London — 185 five-star hotels
4. Bangkok — 167 five-star hotels
5. Paris — 123 five-star hotels
6. Kuala Lumpur — 70 five-star hotels
7. Hong Kong — 67 five-star hotels
8. New York — 60 five-star hotels
9. Macau — 42 five-star hotels
10. Antalya — 40 five-star hotels
11. Kyoto — 38 five-star hotels
12. Cancun — 36 five-star hotels
13. Los Angeles — 31 five-star hotels
14. Medina — 23 five-star hotels

Standing back from a world map, the outline of land against water starts to look less tidy than it first appears. Some countries are stretched across hundreds or even thousands of fragments, scattered like broken glass across vast stretches of ocean. Others sit almost entirely on a single mass of rock but still qualify as island nations in their own right. There are places where the distance between communities is measured in ferry hours rather than roads, and others where a capital city is closer to another continent than to its own outer edges. WorldAtlas reports that these countries do not sit comfortably in one shape. They drift, in a sense, across water that has long shaped how people live inside them.

World largest islands countries

Indonesia

Indonesia sits in a long arc between Asia and Australia, pulled apart into a mass of islands that seem to keep going once you start counting. The spread is so wide that the country crosses different time zones without much effort. Some islands are heavily populated and built up, others remain quiet and forested, rarely mentioned outside maps.Java carries an outsized share of people, while Sumatra and Borneo’s shared stretches give the country a sense of uneven weight.

Far to the east, New Guinea’s western side adds another layer of distance, making the country feel stitched together rather than whole in the usual sense. Travelling across it is less a journey within one place and more a sequence of separate worlds linked by sea.

Madagascar

Madagascar sits alone off the African coast, separated by a wide strip of ocean that has kept it physically distant for millions of years. Most of the country rests on one large island, with a few smaller pieces nearby that barely change its overall outline.That long separation has shaped life there in unusual ways. Species evolved without much outside influence, which is why many plants and animals found there do not appear anywhere else. The landscape shifts from dense forest to dry regions with little transition, giving the island a sense of internal contrast that feels almost self-contained.

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea occupies the eastern half of New Guinea and a scattering of surrounding islands. The terrain is steep in places, heavily forested in others, and often cut off by natural barriers that make movement between communities difficult.Inside that geography sits an extraordinary spread of languages, with hundreds still in use. Many developed in isolation across valleys and ridges, where contact between groups remained limited for generations. The surrounding islands add another layer of separation, leaving the country fragmented not just by water but by land that resists easy travel.

Japan

Japan runs along the edge of East Asia in a narrow chain that curves through cold northern waters down to subtropical regions. The main islands form a clear spine, but the surrounding smaller ones complicate any simple picture of the country.At one point, official mapping suggested a certain number of islands. Later surveys, using improved methods, revised the figure sharply upward. Nothing about the land changed, yet the way it was counted did. The coastline remains irregular, shaped by volcanic activity and shifting seas, giving the country a constantly measured, slightly uncertain geography.

Malaysia

Malaysia exists in two separate parts, split by a stretch of ocean that keeps them physically apart. One-half sits on the Malay Peninsula, sharing land borders with Thailand. The other rests on Borneo, alongside Indonesia and Brunei.This separation affects daily movement in practical ways. Flights often replace what would otherwise be overland travel, and national administration spans a gap of open water. The islands and coastal edges add further fragmentation, though most of the population is concentrated in urban centres that anchor each half of the country.

Philippines

The Philippines spreads across a wide section of the western Pacific, made up of thousands of islands of varying size and shape. Some are large enough to contain major cities and entire provinces, while others are little more than strips of land surrounded by reef and deep water.The three broad regional groupings help make sense of it, though they do not remove the sense of dispersion. Travel between islands often depends on weather and sea conditions, which can shift quickly. The result is a country where distance is measured less in kilometres and more in how long it takes to cross water.

New Zealand

New Zealand sits far from major landmasses, made up mainly of two large islands and a long list of smaller ones. The South Island carries mountains, rivers and wide open spaces, while the North Island holds most of the population and administrative centres.Despite its size, the country feels relatively contained, with most people living in coastal cities. Beyond those areas, landscapes open out quickly into sparsely populated regions. The sea plays a constant role in shaping that separation, with even internal travel often involving long stretches between settlements.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is anchored by Great Britain, a single large island that holds England, Scotland and Wales. Nearby lies another sizeable landmass shared with the Republic of Ireland, with Northern Ireland forming part of the political structure on its own side.Surrounding waters have long influenced how the country connects internally and externally. Even within the main island, distances are short enough that no point sits very far from the coast. Offshore territories and smaller islands extend the reach further, though the core remains tightly concentrated on a single stretch of land.

Cuba

Cuba sits at a point where several major bodies of water meet, giving it a long, narrow shape stretched across the Caribbean. The main island dominates, with smaller surrounding islands adding texture to its outline without changing its overall form.Its position places it close to other major landmasses, yet still clearly separated by water. Coastal regions vary between quiet stretches and more developed urban areas, while inland zones remain less densely populated. The island’s shape makes travel across it relatively straightforward compared with more fragmented archipelagos.

Iceland

Iceland lies in the North Atlantic, closer to the Arctic Circle than to continental Europe. Most of the population is concentrated in a small part of the island, while large areas remain uninhabited due to volcanic terrain and harsh weather.The land itself continues to shift slowly as tectonic forces pull it apart. New formations appear over time, while others change shape under geothermal activity. Despite its size relative to the list, it stands as a single landmass shaped as much by movement beneath the surface as by the ocean around it.