SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon.com today announced its fifth annual list of the Most Well-Read Cities in America – just in time for summer reading season. The ranking was determined by compiling sales data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle format from April 2014 to April 2015, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 500,000 residents.
The Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities are:
| 1. Seattle, Wash. | 11. Charlotte, N.C. | ||||||||||
| 2. Portland, Ore. | 12. Baltimore, Md. | ||||||||||
| 3. Las Vegas, Nev. | 13. San Diego, Calif. | ||||||||||
| 4. Tucson, Ariz. | 14. Houston, Texas | ||||||||||
| 5. Washington, D.C. | 15. Indianapolis, Ind. | ||||||||||
| 6. Austin, Texas | 16. San Jose, Calif. | ||||||||||
| 7. San Francisco, Calif. | 17. Jacksonville, Fla. | ||||||||||
| 8. Albuquerque, N.M. | 18. San Antonio, Texas | ||||||||||
| 9. Denver, Colo. | 19. Nashville, Tenn. | ||||||||||
| 10. Louisville, Ky. | 20. Chicago, Ill. |
Amazon also took a closer look at the data and uncovered some interesting trends across the cities:
- Seattle, Wash., the home of Amazon headquarters, not only purchased the most books overall but also purchased the most Kindle books, magazines, and newspapers.
- Washington, D.C. residents, ranked #5 overall on the list, prefer the print book, outranking Seattle as the city with the most purchases of print books.
- California is for readers with three cities making the top 20 list this year: San Francisco, San Diego, and San Jose.
- Las Vegas is for lovers—their residents purchased the most romance titles.
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn was the top-selling title in seven of the top 20 cities: Houston, Texas; Austin, Texas; Charlotte, N.C.; Tucson, Ariz., Louisville, Ky.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Baltimore, Md.
“We’re excited to see Seattle take the top spot on our annual Most Well-Read Cities list,” said Sara Nelson, Editorial Director of Print and Kindle Books at Amazon.com. “Summer has just begun and we hope we can help readers discover their next favorite books and contribute to their cities’ well-read ranking.”
Customers eager to move their city up the list can visit the Amazon Book Editors’ Summer Reading feature at www.amazon.com/summerreading, where they’ll find recommendations ranging from beach reads to blockbusters.
About Amazon
Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire phone, Fire tablets, and Fire TV are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon.
