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A Palma-based content agency, Ximbomba (@ximbomba.agencia on TikTok), recently took to the streets of Mallorca with a cheeky question: what's the ugliest town on the island? The answers came thick and fast, with 11 different places named, but one clear winner emerged by a landslide.

 

Manacor, birthplace of tennis legend Rafa Nadal, scooped a whopping 37 mentions. That's a massive 25 more than second-place Inca with 12 votes. Even locals weren't sparing their own backyard. One interviewee admitted: "And I was born there and I'm from there..." while another who had lived there longest sighed: "I've lived in Manacor longer than in my own town and it's rubbish." Other jabs included "I don't like it much", "Always Manacor, always" and "There are no good-looking people in Manacor."

 

Poor Manacor can't catch a break - it seems to collect these "ugliest" titles like badges of honour. In 2023, Chatgpt, the artificial intelligence platform, ranked it the ugliest municipality in Mallorca after a national consultation. And back in 2018, a satirical tournament by online publication Foc i Fum also crowned it Majorca's least attractive town.

 

The full street survey results for this year´s unofficial survey, make for amusing reading:

 

Ximbomba specialises in viral social media stunts and brand content, so this informal poll was right up their street. They captured candid reactions amid plenty of laughter, showing how beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. Personal history, memories and local rivalries all played their part in the verdicts.

 

Palma got a few nominations too, alongside smaller spots like Sa Pobla and Marratxí. But poor Manacor bore the brunt, even from those with deep roots there. It's all subjective of course, and what one person sees as ugly, another might cherish as home.

 

 

Images: wikicommons