Pittsburgh has been named one of the best travel destinations in the world by National Geographic. 

VisitPittsburgh says after a “robust” nomination, researching and reporting process, National Geographic travel experts and international editorial teams picked the Steel City as one of 25 top global travel destinations for next year. Pittsburgh is on the “Best of the World” list with destinations like the Dolomites mountain range in Italy, the Caribbean island nation of Dominica, Turkey’s Black Sea Coast, Japan’s Yamagata Prefecture, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Oulu in Finland and Spain’s Basque Country.

Built at the meeting point of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, this city has one of the most distinctive geographies in the United States. It’s surrounded by cliffs and crossed by hundreds of bridges and tunnels, forcing engineers to build a transport network unlike anywhere else. But geography didn’t just shape how Pittsburgh looks — it shaped its history. From the rise and fall of the steel industry to its modern reinvention around Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and UPMC, this is the story of a city that had to constantly adapt to survive.