Study: A beauty map of London

London boasts a good supply of attractive persons. A study called A Beauty-Map of London: Ratings of the Physical Attractiveness of Women and Men in London’s Boroughs evaluates how all that beauty is distributed across the city.

The researchers asked 461 people, many of them acquaintances of their acquaintances, to answer a simple survey. The raters considered each of the 33 boroughs (counting the City of London as a borough, which technically it isn’t). They opined on the physical beauty of each borough’s men. They opined separately on the beauty of the women. They expressed each opinion as a number, anything from 1 (not at all physically attractive) to 9 (extremely attractive).

Authors Viren Swami and Eliana G Hernandez are based at the University of Westminster. Swami and Hernandez’s numbers identify a best-in-show: “Participants rated individuals from the City of Westminster as being highest in physical attractiveness.” …

So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.