The Mirror’s data team has crunched the numbers and found where in the country has the highest concentration of pubs – see if your hometown has made the cut in our rankings
Cheers!(Image: Getty Images)
The pub capital of the UK has been crowned, and it’s a beautiful part of the country with cosy inns and rolling hills.
It’s been a rough year for the pub trade. Many are facing increasingly tricky futures. A report by UK Hospitality has warned that six venues will close every day this year without support – a total of more than 2,000. That far outstrips the 378 that closed in 2025, according to the Institute for Licensing. The British Beer and Pub Association worries pubs will need to sell an extra 1.3 billion pints of beer a year to offset surging taxes.
However, as gloomy as the overall picture is, there are still thousands of incredible pubs across the country, and areas where the trade is, if not booming, then thriving in a relative sense.
The Mirror’s data team has crunched the numbers and found that the drinkers in the Derbyshire Dales are more well stocked with pubs than anywhere else in England and Wales. The rural council has a total of 152 pubs and bars within its borders, according to our analysis of government data.
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That works out as the equivalent of 25 for every 10,000 adults living there.
That’s the highest rate for any local authority in England and Wales, excluding two areas where extremely low population numbers skew the figures – the City of London (188 pubs and bars, equivalent to 132 per 10,000 adults) and the Isles of Scilly (six pubs, equivalent to 29 per 10,000).
Westminster has the next highest number of pubs relative to its drinking-age population. The London borough’s 407 boozers works out as 23 for every 10,000 resident adults.
Powys also has 23 per 10,000 adults with a total of 259 pubs.
That’s followed by Pembrokeshire with 21 per 10,000 adults, then four council areas with 18 pubs for every 10,000 adults – Westmorland and Furness, North Yorkshire, Gwynedd and Ceredigion.
You can see how many pubs there are for every 10,000 adults in each council area in the country by using our interactive map.
London councils fill the top 10 list of areas with the most pubs relative to their geographic size.The City of London’s 188 pubs and bars works out as the equivalent of 169 for every square mile (with the area famously known as “the Square Mile” being slightly larger than a square mile).
Westminster’s 407 pubs is equivalent to 49 every square mile. In Islington, there are 40 pubs every square mile, while in both Camden there are 29, in Hackney 22 and in both Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham there are 20 every square mile.
Liverpool has the highest density of pubs outside of London. The city’s 502 boozers works out as nearly 12 for every square mile, the 11th highest ratio in England and Wales.
Manchester’s 432 pubs work out at nearly 10 per square mile. Portsmouth’s 139 pubs are nine per square mile, Blackpool’s 114 pubs are also nine per square mile, Norwich’s 127 are eight per square mile, as are Brighton’s 244 pubs and Bristol’s 321.
Wales and England’s 25 pub capitals
- Derbyshire Dales
- Westminster
- Powys
- Pembrokeshire
- North Yorkshire
- Westmorland and Furness
- Gwynedd
- Ceredigion
- Carmarthenshire
- Staffordshire Moorlands
- South Hams
- Denbighshire
- Monmouthshire
- North Devon
- Cotswold
- East Lindsey
- West Devon
- High Peak
- Malvern Hills
- Herefordshire, County of
- Shropshire
- Isle of Anglesey
- Calderdale
- Great Yarmouth
- Amber Valley