As summer vacation season starts, we measured check-ins made on Facebook in 25 cities worldwide to determine the world’s most social landmarks.

Among the no. 1 ranked landmarks across the 25 cities:
– 7 are sports stadiums/arenas
– 6 are public areas: squares/avenues/parks/gardens
– 2 are amusement parks
– 2 are concert arenas
– 2 are shopping-related: shopping centers/malls

Looking deeper into the data, we saw that shopping is popular internationally: malls and outdoor markets appear within the top 10 landmarks for 19 of 25 cities, including Sao Paolo’s Mercado Municipal, Seoul’s Dongdaeum and Melbourne’s Queen Victoria market. Amusement parks like Johannesburg’s Gold Reef City, Moscow’s Gorky Park, Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens and Seoul’s Lotte World were among the top 10 places to check-in. Restaurants like the Hard Rock Cafes in Buenos Aires, Delhi and Barcelona, TGI Fridays in Norway, and Bella Paulista Casa de Paes in Sao Paulo were favorites too.

Cities with warmer climates had more check-ins to outdoors spots, like St. Kilda Beach in Melbourne and the Wynyard Quarter wharf in Auckland, while colder climes had more activity in concert halls or bars. Six of Moscow’s 10 most popular slots belong to bars and clubs.

Examining check-ins by season helped us uncover some summer trends. Music festivals like Glastonbury and Lollapalooza appear as top summer check-ins. Sports venues also ranked highly in the U.S., with Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco each featuring stadiums or arenas in their top 10 list. Baseball was also very popular in Tokyo, where the Tokyo Dome won out, while in other cities, soccer, rugby, and cricket venues were popular summer hangouts.

We found some interesting comparisons within individual cities. In New York, the American Museum of Natural History garnered more check-ins than its neighbor across Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rome’s Spanish Steps is one the city’s most social spots followed by the Trevi Fountain, just 10 minutes away. City architectural treasures and famous green spaces were popular throughout New York, Berlin, London, Rome – and Paris, where the Avenue des Champs-Élysées beat out the famous Eiffel Tower.

All data was aggregated anonymously across check-ins made on Facebook or by 3rd-party apps using the Facebook API. Transportation hubs (airports, train stations, bus stations, etc.) were excluded. Data for top landmarks by city was aggregated across all check-ins since the launch of product (August 2010) and ranked to identify the top landmarks.