If you speak to anyone who has been to Poland, time and time again the same compliment is made about its cities. Whenever I’ve asked friends about their trips, they will inevitably mention at some point that their destination was spotlessly clean. 

And now it’s official, one of Poland’s popular city break destinations has been crowned the world’s cleanest city based on an analysis of data by Radical Storage using 70,000+ Google reviews. Krakow in Poland beat cities in Japan, the UAE, and Singapore to take the title, with 98.5% of reviews giving a positive rating to the city’s cleanliness.

It’s not the first time Kraków has been praised for its public spaces. In 2023, the European Commission released a report called Quality of Life in European Cities, which included surveying residents about their experiences living in their local area. In Kraków, more than 80% of residents said they were totally satisfied with their public spaces, which include parks, squares, and markets, showing there’s a real sense of pride in the city. 

I had the chance to visit Kraków in September of last year, arriving late at night, which any solo female traveller will tell you is a bit daunting. But even travelling to my hotel at 2am, I noticed the streets were well-lit and free of rubbish, which is always a good sign. 

One advantage that Kraków has over larger cities is that it’s walkable, with a compact centre that has cheap, reliable public transport to zip you around. While travelling around London at night often means taking an Uber on congested roads or braving a grubby night tube, Kraków has regular trams through the night with short single journeys costing just 4PLN, about 80p. 

Having fewer cars on the road certainly makes a difference. The city just feels much cleaner without idling traffic and more pleasant for pedestrians. A network of cycle lanes and underpasses means many residents get around safely by bike.

The next morning, Kraków was looking particularly pretty thanks to the sunny weather, and I got to appreciate the city’s beauty in the daylight. Walking around the city centre, there were historic buildings on pretty much every street, and each one was beautifully preserved and well looked after. 

Even visiting some of the city’s oldest buildings, such as the Renaissance-era Cloth Hall, I noticed they looked particularly vibrant and the brickwork almost looked like new. Perhaps it was the sunny weather, but the buildings didn’t have the dingy, tired look that some historic places can develop over time. 

Kraków is a great city for those who like to wander without too much of an itinerary in mind. Within minutes, I’d strolled down cobbled streets, found green spaces shaded by trees, and found a long path that runs along the river. 

In the past decade, Kraków, along with other Polish cities, has invested in waste management and clearing up its public spaces. Warsaw also managed to make it into the cleanest city rankings at number four, showing that spending the money on creating pleasant spaces pays off in the long-term.

A small blight on the city is its graffiti. Some areas such as Kazimierz – the Jewish Quarter – have amazing street art and murals which have obviously taken a lot of time and effort. However, like many European cities, Kraków seemed to have a lot of graffiti tags, even on some of its beautiful old buildings. While its streets are swept and power-washed and its green spaces trimmed, getting rid of some of the signs of vandalism would make it even lovelier. 

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