Stanfords was used as a point of research in “The Independent Traveller” survey that resulted in London being named the capital of the world.
Researchers from the Saturday travel supplement used the criteria of the number of individual guidebooks that appeared on the shelves of our store to score each capital city of the world. They also used criteria such as populations, number of Unesco World Heritage Sites, the number of non-native restaurants listed in the current “Time Out City Guide”, and ‘Three-star sights’ (the top rating) in the “Michelin Green Guide”.
London came out top, followed by New York, Paris, Tokyo and Chicago. The results were published on 22 December and are on the Independent’s website (www.independent.co.uk/capitals).
In the article, travel editor Simon Calder also mentioned our store as he celebrated London’s result: ‘To see how much there is to fathom [of London], wander down the basement of Stanfords, the map and travel guide shop in Covent Garden (and venue for some of our researches). You can walk across the full extent of the city in about 10 seconds flat, because a giant map of the capital is printed on the floor.’
Date: 4 January 2008