Perhaps most surprising on our list is the city of Richmond, Va., which averages about 14.5 tattoo shops per 100,000 people — and that's just within the city itself. Likely boosting its numbers is its big arts and college community, and the fact that the surrounding suburbs and cities contain plenty more tattoo shops — the most of which per capita appeared in the small town of Colonial Heights, which has five shops for just under 17,000 residents.
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No. 2: Las Vegas, Nev.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas...and on your body forever. With 94 listed tattoo shops, Sin City — host of one of the biggest tattoo conventions in the country — comes in at just above 16 shops per 100,000 people, most of whom are between the ages of 25 and 44. The city also has one of the country's highest marriage, divorce and suicide rates, in addition to holding a place on our Worst Skin, Worst Hair, Worst B.O. and Ugliest Cities lists. Remember that next time you want to document your trip after one too many giant margaritas on The Strip.
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No. 1: Miami Beach, Fla.
And finally, "Bienvenido a Miami (Beach)" Home to TLC's "Miami Ink" and the famous South Beach, this party town has a ton of tattoo shops to go around. Averaging about 24 shops per 100,000 people, Miami Beach is dense with ink. (Guess being able to sunbathe nude near one of the vainest cities in the country didn't quite do it for them — or maybe they just want works of art to display while they soak up the sun in the buff.)
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.
