Poppy / 03 January 2026 / Categories: City, What to see, What to do

Top 10 Urban Parks Worldwide: Best City Green Spaces from Central Park to Mayfair’s Mount Street Gardens and London’s Plane Trees

Discover the world’s best urban parks and green spaces, from Central Park to Mayfair’s Mount Street Gardens and London’s plane trees, celebrating cooling shade, biodiversity and city wellbeing.

London is well known for its parks and open spaces. Possibly offering some of the most beautiful in the world. For me Green Park and Regents Park compete against the most well known and widely visited parks in the world like Central Park New York City to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens in London. I read a snoop over the holidays that mentioned a park I spend quite a bit of time in as I buy my lunch at a cafe, Hideaway on Mount St and meander around the back to a somewhat secret spot few people unless local actually know is there, Mount St Gardens. I had a load a pictured I discovered I thought would be interesting to share so I started thinking about my top 10 Urban Parks and Green Spaces Worldwide: From Central Park to Mayfair’s Mount Street Gardens and London’s Plane Trees.

I could while away the hours, conversing with the flowers, in my case consulting with the pigeons and watching the grand London plane trees sway in the wind and whisper back to me. In London the park is definitely more affable and inviting in the summer months but I go in the winter too for quiet time usually after exercise with a hot drink when the cold doesn’t bite so cruelly, until it does.

Cities feel more liveable when there’s a patch of green within easy reach and the best urban parks don’t just decorate a map; they cool neighbourhoods, invite wildlife back into the city, give us space to move and breathe, and often hold the stories of the places around them. From grand landscapes to pocket-sized sanctuaries, here are ten outstanding parks and green spaces around the world — including Mayfair’s quietly enchanting Mount Street Gardens and the unsung urban heroes of London’s plane trees.

Central Park, New York City, USA

I’ve visited Central Park a few times, actually three. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed Central Park to be a democratic escape for a fast‑industrialising city, and it remains exactly that. Winding paths reveal lakes, meadows and woodlands, while landmarks such as Bethesda Terrace, the Ramble and the Great Lawn give each visit a sense of discovery. In every season, the park absorbs the city’s noise and returns birdsong, boat‑paddles and skaters’ arcs.

Bosque de Chapultepec, Mexico City, Mexico

One of the largest city parks in the Americas, Chapultepec is truly the capital’s green lungs. Ancient trees and spring‑fed lakes are woven together with cultural heavyweights: the hilltop castle, the Museum of Anthropology and a constellation of galleries and gardens. Go for the shade, stay for rowing on the lakes and long walks beneath vast canopies that predate the modern city.

Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, France

If Central Park is democratic drama, the Luxembourg Gardens are Parisian poise. A personal favourite of mine in my favourite city to live after London. I spent a summer there a few years back and enjoyed many walks in the park. Created for Marie de’ Medici in the 17th century, they are a masterclass in the formal French garden—gravel walks, clipped trees, statues and an elegant octagonal basin—but softened by orchards, lawns and the romantic Medici Fountain. Locals play chess, students read on green chairs and bees forage in the apiary: it is civic space refined to a fine art.

Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, London, UK

A green sweep through the heart of London, this pair of adjoining landscapes blends formal avenues with moments of gentle wildness. The Serpentine, Speakers’ Corner and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain offer space for reflection, debate and play. In summer the long grass meadows hum with life; in winter the bare plane branches etch filigree patterns against pale skies. I love to watch the riders on horse back traversing the park and it’s a great walk and cut through to a favourite coffee and chocolate shop, Cocomaya in Connaught Village W2 before it sadly closed back in 2017, I miss it. I now go to the Markus Coffee Company when I am in the neighbourhood for their extensive selection of roasts. But if you love cheesecake baked daily and the most indulgent tiramisu I can definitely recommend Le Marit Xu which has taken over the CocoMaya shop.You’ll be grateful for the walk home across the park.

Mount Street Gardens, Mayfair, London, UK

Tucked behind red‑brick mansion blocks and the spire of the Jesuit church on Farm Street, Mount Street Gardens is a masterclass in urban calm. This is the park I consider my back garden. I live in a flat with a tiny terrace our only outdoor space but still a luxury in central London. Once part of a churchyard, today it’s a serene patchwork of benches, lawns and beds edged with palms, ferns and mature London planes. Office workers and neighbours drift in for a sandwich or a deep breath between meetings; blackbirds rummage in the borders; the city recedes. It’s tiny by global standards, but that’s the point: a model of how to make everyday city life gentler.

London’s Plane Trees, London, UK

Not a park, but an ever‑present green architecture that frames the city’s streets and squares. The London plane (Platanus × acerifolia), a resilient hybrid, has been planted for centuries across the capital — and there ever presence in Mount Street Gardens along with the distinctive Canary Palm Trees make this space. Look out for them along the Embankment, through Bloomsbury’s garden squares, in Berkeley Square and lining the great processional routes. Its flaking bark sheds pollution, its broad leaves cast generous shade, and careful pollarding keeps crowns safe above pavements and buses. In a warming climate, these trees are vital infrastructure: cooling streets, filtering air and creating wildlife corridors that stitch parks together.

Stanley Park, Vancouver, Canada

A seawall route pulses around a peninsula of temperate rainforest, where cedars and hemlocks rise above ferns and salal. Stanley Park is a rare thing: a substantial remnant of coastal ecosystem embedded in a city. Views pivot from mountains to harbour to skyline; great blue herons nest in the trees; artworks and totem poles at Brockton Point honour enduring Indigenous cultures. Cyclists, runners and strollers share the same salt‑tinged loop.

Gardens by the Bay, Singapore

A leap into the future, rooted in botany. Supertrees harvest solar energy and channel cooling shade; the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome reimagine conservatories as immersive landscapes; boardwalks float above wetlands stitched into the Marina Bay shoreline. Beneath the spectacle lies a sophisticated lesson in climate adaptation and how design can make sustainability feel irresistible.

Parque do Ibirapuera, São Paulo, Brazil

Part urban retreat, part cultural engine, Ibirapuera syncs lakes and lawns with modernist pavilions by Oscar Niemeyer and landscape ideas by Roberto Burle Marx. Cyclists lap the perimeter; skaters and dancers co‑opt the covered canopies; families gather for picnics under sweeping fig trees. On weekends the park becomes a festival of everyday life, an antidote to the city’s intensity.

Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany

A former royal hunting ground reimagined as a public park, Tiergarten is now a soft green labyrinth threaded with canals and glades. War damage led to replanting and restoration; today nightingales sing in spring, and joggers arc past memorials and embassies between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column. It’s central Berlin’s quiet conscience, expansive yet intimate.

Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, Australia

Few parks can rival these harbour‑edge lawns for drama. Eucalypts and palms set a sculptural frame; beds reveal the breadth of Australia’s flora alongside global collections; lorikeets flash through the canopy. From Mrs Macquarie’s Chair the view opens across the water to the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, a reminder of how powerfully plants can elevate a city’s most iconic vistas.

Why these spaces matter to me and why where ever I go I always research where the local park is.

They are everyday health infrastructure. Trees and water moderate heat, improve air quality and reduce stress. Access to nature within a 15‑minute walk is increasingly treated as a public health goal, not a luxury.

- They are biodiversity bridges. Urban parks, street trees and pocket gardens allow birds, bats and pollinators to move through the city; fallen leaves feed soils; deadwood supports invertebrates.

They are cultural commons. From Speakers’ Corner to open‑air concerts, museums in the park to impromptu football on a patch of grass, green spaces host the rituals that knit cities together.

They are models of resilience. From Singapore’s climate‑smart Supertrees to the London plane’s pollution‑shedding bark, design and species choice can future‑proof urban life.

The small print of great green places.

A list like this could easily have included Madrid’s Retiro, Barcelona’s Park Güell, Dublin’s Phoenix Park, Tokyo’s Shinjuku Gyoen, Amsterdam’s Vondelpark or Cape Town’s Kirstenbosch. The point isn’t to crown a single “best”, but to highlight how different scales — the majesty of Central Park, the civic sweep of Ibirapuera, the neighbourhood hush of Mount Street Gardens — all contribute to a healthier urban fabric. And remember the lesson of London’s plane trees: sometimes the most transformative green spaces aren’t parks at all, but the living avenues and squares between them.

Wherever you are, seek out the nearest patch of shade, listen for the first birdsong beneath the traffic, and feel how the city changes when you’re surrounded by leaves. That is the quiet power of urban nature.