Eiffel Tower a magnet for selfies

Eiffel Tower a magnet for selfies

Big Ben and London Bridge are two of the most popular spots in the world to take a selfie, according to new statistics.

Tourist attraction site AttractionTix analysed social media to find mentions of travel hot spots alongside the world 'selfie', and have compiled a list of the most popular places to pose for a self-taken self portrait.

At the top of the list was the Eiffel Tower in Paris, with more than 10,700 posts found so far in 2015, ahead of Disney World in Orlando, Florida and the world's tallest building - the Burj Khalifa - in Dubai.

Big Ben was in fourth place with over 8000 posts, just ahead of the Empire State Building in New York, Gaudi's Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona and Disneyland Paris. The Colosseum in Rome, Rockefeller Centre in New York and London Bridge completed the top 10.

Simon Applebaum, consumer marketing director at AttractionTix said of the results: 'Selfies have not only become acceptable, but the standard thing to do nowadays when at an attraction, so it's only natural that people are taking selfies of themselves when travelling around the world, and then sharing them on social media.

'Our top 10 features traditional sites such as the Eiffel Tower and Colosseum, but it was interesting to see that the Burj Khalifa ranked third, one of the world's newest skyscrapers beat sites with hundreds of years of history.'

Other UK landmarks to make the top 40 include Buckingham Place, the London Eye, Tower Bridge and Madame Tussauds London. Stonehenge, Edinburgh Castle and the Blackpool Tower also featured.

More than 219 million images tagged with the word 'selfie' in order to compile the data, and according to recent figures more than one million selfies are taken every day around the world.