Wikidata, the open database behind Wikipedia, knows where 23,468 films were shot: 7,926 filming locations, from Pinewood Studios to Lake Como. This map puts them all in one place, shows which countries play host to other countries' films, and follows James Bond around the world.
Every film is made somewhere, and quite often it is made somewhere other than where it is set, or where it comes from. Wikidata records a filming location for tens of thousands of films, each with coordinates. Put them on a map and you get a picture of the world's film industry as the open record sees it: a few huge production cities, a ring of studios and suburbs around them, and a scattering of deserts, islands and old towns that turn up in film after film.
That record is far from complete, and its gaps are not random. 40% of the films here are American, and films with more Wikipedia articles have more locations recorded. Many locations are whole countries or states rather than places: 20% of film-location records just say a country, and 14% a state or region. Those are kept off the point map, so a country's middle never looks like a film set; they still count when I ask which countries host which films. Use the map to explore, and read every number as "what Wikidata knows".
Hex bins and circles count distinct films with a filming location there (or, popularity-weighted, the sum of those films' Wikidata sitelinks). Only cities, towns and sites are mapped; locations that are a whole country or a state are listed in the side panel and can be shown as dashed rings from the layers menu. "Shot abroad" means the location is outside every country of origin Wikidata gives for the film. Source: Wikidata (CC0). Outlines: Natural Earth. Base map tiles © Esri.
Group every location with the nearest big city (within 32 km), so that Pinewood Studios counts for London and Santa Monica for Los Angeles, and four places stand out. Los Angeles has 1,514 films, New York 1,350, London 1,118 and Paris 933. Vancouver is fifth with 452. Together the top five account for 34% of all films with a mapped location.
The busiest filming cities
Distinct films with a location within 32 km of each city. Switch to popularity-weighted to count each film by its number of Wikidata sitelinks. Click a bar to see the city on the map.
Weighting by popularity changes the order lower down. Long Beach rises from 23rd by films to 9th, and Malibu and San Diego climb too, because the films shot there are well known. Hong Kong falls from 7th to 17th, and Ooty, the hill town in Tamil Nadu with 199 films, almost all Indian, drops out of the top twenty. Popularity here is a Wikipedia measure: it favours films that have articles in many languages, which mostly means Hollywood.
The single most used site is Pinewood Studios, west of London, with 645 films. 66 filming locations are named as studios or sound stages, and between them they appear 881 times.
A film is shot abroad when a location is outside every country Wikidata gives as its country of origin, so co-productions are at home in every partner country. By that measure 19% of films with an origin and a located filming place were shot at least partly abroad (21% leaving out Indonesia's films, which almost all list only Indonesia).
Canada hosts the most foreign productions by far: 717 films, 95% of them American. The United States (292), the United Kingdom (287), France (253) and Spain (252) follow, then Mexico (182). In smaller places foreign films dominate: 96% of the films shot in Malta come from somewhere else, 82% in Morocco, 79% in Bulgaria, 78% in Iceland and 43% in New Zealand.
Countries that host other countries' films
Films with a filming location in each country, split into the country's own films (grey) and foreign productions (teal). The fifteen countries with the most foreign productions. Hover for where they come from.
Where foreign films are the majority
Share of films shot in each country that are foreign productions, for countries with at least 40 films with a known origin.
Big film nations mostly stay at home. Only 4% of the films shot in the United States are foreign, and 1% in Indonesia. Going the other way, 32% of British films and 35% of Indian films with a located place were shot partly abroad, against 25% of American and 21% of French films.
The share of films shot abroad has risen, but less than you might expect: from 20% of films in the 1950s to 25% in the 2000s and 24% in the 2010s (leaving out Indonesia). American films were already travelling in the 1950s and 1960s (31% in the 1960s) when Hollywood went to Spain, Italy and Britain for cheaper crews and for earnings that could not be taken out of Europe. What changed more is where they went.
Share of films shot at least partly abroad, by decade
Films with a country of origin and a located filming place. Hover a point.
Foreign productions hosted, by decade
Films from other countries shot in each place, per decade. Spain peaks in the 1960s, Canada and Bulgaria in the 2000s, Hungary and Iceland in the 2010s.
Some cities are filmed mostly by other people. In Valletta and the rest of Malta, 96% of films are foreign, mainly British and American. Budapest (66%), Vancouver (63%) and Toronto (56%) are the big examples of cities that host American productions. These are the classic stand-ins: Toronto for New York, Budapest for half of Europe, Malta's water tanks for the open sea.
Filming cities where foreign productions are most common
Share of films with a location in each city that are foreign productions; cities with at least 25 films with a known origin.
A caution: Wikidata does not say what a location stood in for. A separate property records where a film is set, but it is not in this data, so I cannot show that Toronto played New York in a given film, only that most of the films shot there come from elsewhere. And countries such as Morocco, New Zealand and Iceland, which host many foreign films, are mostly recorded only as the whole country: 227 films were shot in New Zealand, but only 3 have a location in Wellington and 8 in Auckland.
The Bond films are the obvious test of a map like this. Wikidata gives 248 filming locations for the 25 official Eon Productions films, from Dr. No (1962) to No Time to Die (2021): 179 distinct places in 36 countries and territories. Pinewood Studios is listed for 22 of the 25. Beyond the UK, the United States appears for 10 films, then Switzerland, Italy and the Bahamas (6 each) and Spain (5).
Every Bond film and its recorded locations
Click a film to show its locations on the map above.
The table is also a lesson in coverage. Spectre has 33 locations in Wikidata and Licence to Kill 2; the Bond films before 1990 average 6.6 locations each, those since 2006 average 19.6. That is not because the early films travelled less; Goldfinger went to Switzerland, Kentucky and Miami. It is because recent films are documented in more detail.
The Bond films before 1990 have 6.6 recorded locations each. Those since 2006 have 19.6.
This is a map of documented filming, not of filming. The films come from 134 countries, but the United States alone accounts for 40% of them, and Indonesia for 13%, almost all entered with the single location "Indonesia". India, which makes more films each year than any other country, has 614 here; China 197 and Nigeria 13. Wikidata's film coverage follows Wikipedia's, and Wikipedia's follows the languages and fan bases of its editors.
How precise are the locations?
The 35,108 film-location records by what the location is. Only cities, towns and sites go on the point map.
Popular films are also better described. Among films with fewer than five sitelinks, 10% were shot abroad and they average 1.3 locations; among films with 50 or more, 44% and 3.6 locations. Some of that is real (big films travel), but some is simply that someone has written it down. 78% of all films have just one recorded location.
Better-known films travel more, or are recorded in more detail
Films by popularity (Wikidata sitelinks): share shot at least partly abroad.
Films and places. Every Wikidata item that is an instance of film (Q11424) with a filming location (P915) that has coordinates, from one QLever query: 119,808 rows, because a film repeats for every combination of release date, country of origin and location country. I kept one record per film and per location: 23,468 films, 7,926 locations and 35,108 film-location pairs. A film's year is its earliest publication date (22,271 have one). 1,979 films have no English title in Wikidata and are shown by their Wikidata ID.
Countries, states and sites. Each location is a country (its Wikidata ID is a country's, a UK nation's, a former state's or a continent's; 151 locations), a region (a state, province or region in Natural Earth, or a large named area; 465), a city or town (its name matches a Natural Earth populated place within 40 km; 891), or a site (anything else, from studios to streets and villages; 6,419). Country and region points are centroids and are never mapped as places. Small territories such as Hong Kong, Malta, Monaco and Singapore count as cities. Its country is the present-day country its point falls in.
Home and abroad. A film's countries of origin (P495) are its home; a film from the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia is at home in any successor state, and crown dependencies and overseas territories count as home for the UK, the United States, France, the Netherlands and Denmark. 228 films have no country of origin and are left out of these figures.
Cities. For the city rankings each city, town or site is grouped with the nearest Natural Earth place of 250,000 people or more within 32 km. Bond. The 25 Eon films are a hand list of Wikidata IDs (in the code), each checked against title and year; the 1967 Casino Royale, not an Eon film, is left out.
What this is not. It is not a complete list of where films were shot, and it cannot say where a film is set, what a location stood in for, or how long a crew spent there. Popularity is Wikimedia sitelinks, not box office.