Revealed: Which area of the UK produces the most comedians

...and which produces the least, per capita

Merseyside produces more comedians per capita than any other region of the UK.

Researchers analysed the birthplaces of 541 British comedians and adjusted the results by population size to find the funniest areas.

Merseyside topped the list with 19.6 comedians per million people – including the likes of John Bishop, Kenny Everett, Ken Dodd, Johnny Vegas and Alexei Sayle – ahead of London (19.2) and Greater Manchester (12.6)

At the other end of the table, Cumbria and the Highlands & Islands recorded none at all, while other under-represented areas include Cornwall and Eastern Scotland with fewer than two comics per million people

A total of 31 of the comedians hailed from Merseyside, which has a population of just over 1.5million people, with London’s 8.9million producing 172 comedians.

The top ten was

Merseyside: 19.6 comedians/million
London: 19.2
Greater Manchester:12.6
West of England: 11.3
East Yorkshire & Northern Lincolnshire: 9.5
Gloucestershire & Wiltshire: 9.2
Surrey, East & West Sussex: 8.4
West Midlands: 8.1
Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire: 7.7
North Yorkshire: 7.2

More poorly performing regions included North Wales, Southern Scotland and Northern Ireland with fewer than five comedians per million.

Digital marketing agency Dark Horse, which carried out the survey said these regions nevertheless ‘make a big impact, because all of these areas are well known for their humour, despite the lack of representation.’

Libby Mayfield, the companies head of marketing, said: ‘Comedy is more than just entertainment; it’s culture, identity, and one of Britain’s best coping mechanisms. We wanted to celebrate the regions bringing laughter into everyday life, whether it’s in pubs, clubs, or living rooms.’

The study looked at 541 comedians born in the UK after 1900, using publicly available lists from IMDb and Wikipedia, with each assigned to their corresponding International Territorial Level region, a statistical geography framework used by the Office for National Statistics. The full dataset is available here.

Published: 28 Aug 2025