If you want to understand the scale of a city’s international reach, the IESE Business School has a novel approach: count the number of McDonald’s (MCD) within the city limits.
In the university’s 2025 Cities in Motion report, the popular fast-food chain’s presence is used to illustrate the strength of an international city’s economy, its openness to international commerce, and the consumption preferences of its residents.
In the United States, some economists argue that the fast-food chain’s popularity is an economic indicator. When McDonald’s sales fall, it’s often the case that Americans are struggling financially and have less discretionary income.
On its own, this theory is still subject to debate, but in the IESE report the number of McDonald’s in a given city is one of several metrics used to determine a municipality’s international prominence.
“The future of cities will depend not only on their size or wealth, but also on their ability to innovate, anticipate, and respond with agility to emerging challenges,” said the study’s co-authors Pascual Berrone and Joan Enric Ricart. “The key to urban progress lies in combining strategic vision with operational flexibility.”
Other metrics used to determine which cities have the strongest international profiles include the number of passengers per airport, the number of hotels per capita, and the number of meetings and conferences held in each of the 183 cities that the report ranks.
“This last metric is particularly relevant,” the report explains, “as such events are typically held in cities with a wide range of international hotel options, suitable infrastructure for large meetings, frequent international air connections, and high security standards.”
The most internationally prominent cities are distributed across regions, but the U.S. remains a dominant cultural force, per this particular study. In the top 10, there are two European cities, five American cities, two Asian cities, and one city in the Middle East.
Click through to see the 10 most internationally prominent cities in the world.
