Home to some of the most popular tattooed celebs, like Angelina Jolie and Kat Von D (of "LA Ink"), Los Angeles boasts about 150 tattoo parlors within 10 miles of the city center. (Heck, we counted 15 in one of the country's most famous tattoo "strips," Venice Beach, alone). Its surrounding area also plays host to some of the country's largest tattoo expos. And while the amount of people living in L.A. (we're talking millions) hurts their per capita ranking (which is about four shops per 100,000 people), as one tattoo lover we found put it, L.A.'s tattoo-friendly "vibe" is hard to find elsewhere.
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No. 9: Kansas City, Mo.
With about six tattoo shops per 100,000 people, Kansas City came up in several sites we looked at as another "tattoo-friendly" place to live — not bad for the not-so-tattoo-friendly Midwest. Why? We're guessing it has something to do with KC being the bustling center of the Kansas City metro area and the state's largest city, along with having a thriving population of below-30 folk, more than 10 colleges and universities, and a big performing arts scene.
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No. 8: Honolulu, Hawaii
With its gorgeous beaches, amazing climate and abundance of tiny-umbrella-topped frosty cocktails, Honolulu already looks like a great place to live (paradise, much?). But add the props it earned from us for Best Hair, Best Skin and Best-Looking people, and you've got one of the best places to live in the whole country. Now, it can add a large number of tattoo shops, 6.5 per 100,000 people, to its impressive list of attributes — that is, if ink is your thing.
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No. 7: San Francisco, Calif.
With seven tattoo parlors per 100,000 people in San Francisco alone (we didn't count nearby Oakland and college town Berkeley), San Francisco ranks super high on our list. The Bay Area was even mentioned (along with New York City, which didn't make our list) as the only American places in Matador Nights' "Five Destinations for the Tattooed Traveler," thanks to its status as an underground "haven" for tattoo lovers in the '60s.
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No. 6: Austin, Texas
Called "accepting" of heavily tattooed individuals, this increasingly hip college town and "Live Music Capital of the World" is visited by young, "artsy" tattooed people from all over, at least once a year, at its South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. Not to mention its Reggae Festival and Film Festival, among others. Most of Austin's population is also age 25 to 44, prime for tattoo getters, and there are about 7.5 shops per 100,000 people. One chat forum we came across had several individuals say they'd never seen so many tattooed people in one city.
Well, it's official. Whether or not you think tattoos are sexy forms of self-expression, Maxim, Playboy, AskMen.com and FOX have all pegged tattooed beauties as some of the hottest in the world. The most recent picks? Britney (yes, she still makes many of the lists!), Angelina, Katy Perry, Zoe Saldana, Megan Fox and Jessica Alba. And, lest we forget the opposite sex: Johnny Depp (People's "Sexiest Man Alive" two years in a row), Brad Pitt, David Beckham and Hugh Jackman, to name a few, all have several tats. They are but shining examples of the reason tattoos are today's favorite "beauty marks."
According to two Harris Interactive polls (taken in 2003 and 2008) and a Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology study from 2006 — between 14 percent and 25 percent of the country's adults have at least one tattoo, with the most tattooed people being between ages 25 and 29, and living in the West. Of the 2,000-plus people surveyed by Harris Interactive, those who had tattoos thought body art was "sexy," "rebellious," "attractive" and "spiritual." With that said, those without tattoos said they thought the opposite. Translation: If you want your tattoo to look sexy, a) get a mark that's pretty to look at, and b) move to a town where it will be appreciated.
To find out which towns in America were most tattoo-friendly, we perused chat forums and looked up every state in several public directories, including Yellow Pages, Google listings, Tattoo Yellow Pages and AAA Tattoo Directory, to find those with the most listed tattoo and permanent makeup shops. Then we looked up which cities in those states had the most shops listed per capita with populations based on latest U.S. Census numbers. We also took into consideration the city's demographics and whether or not it hosted tattoo conventions, remembering that not all tattoo parlors were listed in the directories. See which cities love ink the most, and let us know if we left one out.
