​​Fans have cheered and despaired at the World Cup’s most exciting – and nail-biting – moments in pubs, watch parties and sitting rooms across the country. But some places have embraced it more than others.

We’ve analysed BBC iPlayer viewing figures to see where the tournament has been most popular. The figures cover all World Cup content on iPlayer – including live matches, highlights and analysis programmes – but do not include games shown exclusively on ITV.

The map of postcode areas below shows the proportion of signed-in iPlayer users who watched BBC World Cup content between 11 June and 7 July. The darker the green, the higher the level of interest.

London has been the tournament’s viewing capital, with 13 of the top 14 postcode areas for iPlayer viewing located in and around the city.

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of UK iPlayer accounts have streamed at least some of the World Cup, but this rises to almost 80% in the leading areas of Southall, Ilford and East London.

Outside London, Manchester is the highest-ranked postcode district, followed by Luton, Oldham and Birmingham.

But matches involving England and Scotland have consistently divided audiences either side of the border.

Scottish households have been less likely to switch on for England matches than households in Wales and Northern Ireland, despite both nations having failed to qualify for the tournament.

The pattern was mirrored in England. Neither of Scotland’s two BBC matches – against Haiti and Brazil – made the top five most-watched group-stage games among English postcodes.

England’s dramatic 3-2 win over Mexico kicked off at 02:00 BST on Monday morning and broke TV records for a live broadcast at that time.

But unlike other games, people in London’s eight inner postcode areas did not tune in live or catch up in the same numbers as the rest of the country.

Blackburn, Oldham, Bolton, Birmingham, Bradford, Sunderland and Wolverhampton all entered the top 10 instead, while some London areas barely made the top 100.

Aside from home nations’ matches, kick-off times and star players have had a significant influence on audience size.

France’s opener against Senegal, which benefitted from a primetime slot (20:00 BST) and featured Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé, drew the second-biggest group stage audience across the UK, behind England-Ghana.

Portugal’s meeting with DR Congo and Argentina’s clash with Austria were also among the most-watched, helped by their early start times (18:00 BST) and the superstar appeal of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

The least popular matches have generally involved smaller nations and been scheduled at midnight (00:00 BST) or later.

There are also clear signs of club loyalty in certain areas.

For example, of the 50 matches broadcast by the BBC up to the Round of 16, Manchester ranked highest relative to other areas for Portugal v DR Congo and Norway’s meetings with Ivory Coast and Iraq.

Portugal’s squad includes past Manchester United legend Ronaldo and current club captain Bruno Fernandes, while Norway are spearheaded by Manchester City’s Erling Haaland.

It’s a similar story in Liverpool, which was outside the top 40 for overall engagement but rose inside the top 10 for Belgium v Egypt and Netherlands’ games against Tunisia and Sweden.

Egyptian Mo Salah recently signed off on a hugely successful nine years at Liverpool, and the Dutch squad includes three Reds’ regulars including captain Virgil van Dijk.

But perhaps the biggest show of club support came in Sunderland, which ranked as the number one postcode area tuning into Tunisia v Netherlands – possibly a result of striker Brian Brobbey breaking into the Dutch team.

The figures cover BBC iPlayer streaming from 11 June to 7 July.

Percentages refer to the number of signed-in UK users who streamed any World Cup content (or a specified match), as a share of the number of users who streamed any iPlayer programme during the tournament.

World Cup content includes full matches, highlights, analysis, and other programmes such as visual podcasts and radio streams. Full matches broadcast on ITV are not included.

A stream must last longer than three seconds to be included.

Signed-in accounts make up for the vast majority of iPlayer streaming, but anyone watching on live TV will not be included.

According to last year’s Ofcom report on the BBC, external, TV reached around twice as many UK adults as iPlayer in 2024-25.

Around one in six signed-in iPlayer accounts have no postcode attached to them so are excluded from the maps. Many of these will be children.

Additional reporting by Jess Carr