The Big Apple was a top choice on the lists of 83% of those surveyed. Washington, DC, which ranked second, was chosen by only 65% of the surveyed students. Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco rounded out the top five cities listed by these first time job hunters.

The two sites also found that the United Kingdom is the most popular country for both American students and foreign-born students at US colleges when asked where they’d like to work after graduation. Like the foreign-born students, US students gave the United States third place—despite a drop in the number of US students looking to move abroad after graduation.

In general, Americans aren’t a particularly worldly people. In fact, most estimates place the number of US citizens with passports somewhere around 20%. It should be no surprise, then, that according to a recent survey of our most popular international destinations we generally stick close to home.

TNS, a respected market research organization, recently conducted their American Traveler Study, asking 8,000 respondents where they had vacationed in the past year and which they liked best among those places they’d been in the last three years.

The results indicate that the most popular destination for Americans is Canada. Of course, the price of gas and other economic factors are a likely reason both for Canada’s popularity as a vacation spot and an overall decrease in international travel. Other popular destinations include the Caribbean and Bermuda, Mexico, the British Isles and France.

The TNS Traveler Satisfaction Index tells another tale. According to the survey, American travelers found Australia to be the best vacation spot. Australia was followed on the Index by London, Ireland, Scotland and British Columbia.

Don’t believe me? Check out the list of America’s most popular magazines.

Family Circle

Published by the Meredith Corporation, Family Circle has been called the most popular women’s magazine in America at times. It was originally published in 1932 by the New York Times and now reaches 20 million readers monthly. It’s considered one of the “seven sisters,” a group of women’s magazines also consisting of Ladies’ Home Journal, McCall’s, Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Garden, Woman’s Day and Redbook.

Good Housekeeping

Another of the “sisters,” currently owned by the Hearst Corporation, Good Housekeeping was originally published in 1885 by Clark W. Bryan in Holyoke, Massachussetts. It was acquired by the Hearst Corporation, still run by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, in 1911. The popular women’s magazine is well known for the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.”

National Geographic

The National Geographic Society first convened in Washington, DC’s Cosmos Club in 1888. At the time, it consisted of thirty-three explorers and scientists. Now, the society is 8 million members strong. The magazine was first published nine months after that initial meeting and has been published monthly ever since. It is now delivered to 9 million readers every month and read by over 50 million. Its popularity most likely doesn’t stem from the occasional booby that graces its pages.

Better Homes and Gardens

The third, and most popular “sister” on the list, this monthly magazine needs no introduction—the name kind of says it all anyway. Better Homes and Garden has spawned numerous home economics books, including the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.

Reader’s Digest

Co-founded in 1922 by Lila Bell and DeWitt Wallace, America’s most popular magazine is available monthly in thirty-five languages. Published in a pocket-sized format, Reader’s Digest bore the tag “America in your pocket” from 2005 to 2008. The magazine’s popularity is no doubt due to both its general-interest nature and the fifty-two editions that are available worldwide. The publication even goes through a rigorous “localization” process to make sure that international readers aren’t threatened by our dirty American memes. All told, the magazine is read by 100 million people globally, which also makes it the world’s most popular magazine.

Parker Brothers’ famous game of economics, Monopoly, has been called “the most played board game in the world.” It’s certainly a believable title when you consider that, according to Hasbro, the game has been played by over 750 million people since Parker Brothers originally published it in 1935.

Monopoly is actually based on a game patented by Elizabeth J. Magie in 1906. The Quaker woman hoped to use The Landlord’s Game to explain Henry George’s single tax theory. Despite Magie’s original and renewed patents of the world’s most popular game, several versions of the game were created in the years before it was published by Parker Brothers. The name “Monopoly” was first applied to the game in 1910 when a shortened version called “Auction Monopoly,” which had eliminated the Georgist elements of the game, became popular.

In 1933, Charles Darrow copyrighted his own version of the game, simply called “Monopoly,” and began shopping for publishers. Despite having rejected Magie’s original Landlord’s Game twice and Darrow’s Monopoly once, Parker Brothers eventually elected to publish the game in 1935. Officially, neither Parker Brothers nor Hasbro, their parent company, acknowledge the history of the game prior to Charles Darrow’s version. They have, however, acquired Magie’s original patent.

The board as most players know it features locations in and around Atlantic City, New Jersey. A multitude of alternate editions, however, replace these properties with others more appropriate to the theme. Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition, for instance, replaces the two utilities in the game with solar and wind energy. Localized versions also exist for countries outside of the US.

Then, of course, there’s the game’s official mascot, Mr. Monopoly—known as Rich Uncle Pennybags until he was renamed by Hasbro in 1998. The character is loosely based on John Pierpont Morgan, billionaire and founder of J. P. Morgan & Co.

Spanish (español) – 417 million speakers

Spanish may only be the fifth most popular language in the world, but it ranks significantly better in native speakers. Its 322 million native speakers make it the third most spoken language in the world by native speakers.

Arabic (al-ʿarabiyyah) – 452 million speakers

Spoken in over twenty Middle Eastern countries, Arabic is one of the oldest living languages in the world. While it is the language used in the Qur’an, most Muslims are not native Arabic speakers.

Attempts to speak this language on planes may be met with irrational fear, incarceration or bullets. Use at your own risk.

Hindustani (हिन्दुस्तानी) – 650 million speakers

Also known as Hindi-Urdu, Hindustani is an official language in Pakistan, India and Fiji. It encompasses a number of dialects, the two most prominent being Standard Hindi and Urdu. In fact, the conquering British in the late 1700s used Hindustani and Urdu interchangeably.

Hindustani is the “neutral” language used in Bollywood films and is the second most spoken language in the world by native speakers.

Mandarin (官話) – 1.05 billion speakers

With well over 800 million native speakers, Mandarin Chinese tops the list of languages by native speakers. Considering China is the most populous country in the world, that’s not exactly surprising. Mandarin, like Hindustani, actually consists of several dialects spoken across most of China.

English (English) – 1.5 billion speakers

It’s no surprise that English is the most popular language on the planet—after all, it’s the language spoken by two of the most formidable global powers in recent history. Will English continue to be the most spoken language on the planet? We’ll see.

“Popular newspapers” may seem like an oxymoron in this post-paper-and-ink era, but you may be surprised by the number of copies of printed news publications in circulation. While newspaper readership is in decline, the world’s most popular newspapers report circulation in the tens of millions.

Surprisingly, the top newspaper is Northern India’s Dainik Jagran. With thirty-two editions and 200 sub-editions, this popular daily is read by over 21.2 million people. Following closely behind is Rajasthan Patrika at 21 million.

The remaining three of the five most popular newspapers come from Japan. Yomiuri Shimbun dominates the island with 14.2 million readers. Asahi Shimbun follows with a circulation of 8 million and the world’s fifth most popular newspaper is Mainichi Shimbun with just under 4 million readers.

The most popular newspaper in the English language is The Times of India with 3.1 million readers. The most popular newspaper in the United States is USA Today with 2.3 million copies circulated.

The most recent Nielsen report places the national average television viewing time between three and just over five hours per day, depending on both gender and age. That means we spend roughly three percent of our lives glued to the TV. So what, exactly, are we watching? What is the most popular television show?

A new study tells us that the most watched television show on Earth is “CSI: Crime Scene Investigations.” The crime drama boasted more than 84 million viewers around the world in 2007, beating sibling show “CSI: Miami” and hospital drama “House.”

It wasn’t the most popular show in America, though. That honor belongs to “American Idol,” which may have netted the global top spot if different countries didn’t have their own versions of the show.

“CSI” debuted in 2000, spawning its Miami spin-off in 2002 and “CSI: NY” in 2004. It is currently scheduled for its ninth season. “American Idol” debuted in 2002 and will begin its 8th season in 2009.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has just announced its results of a survey in which more than 28,000 people were polled in regards to their opinions and attitudes towards thirteen major countries around the world. The results are not startling due to so many countries currently pursuing military power around the world.

It should be noted that 1,000 people in other popular countries like the US, France, Germany, India, Egypt, Turkey, and Mexico were also involved in the survey.

Israel is at present the least popular country in the world with a 56% negativity rating, while Canada ranks as the most popular with a positive percentage rating of 54%. Other rankings include the US and Russia in unpopular eight and ninth places with Japan, the EU and Canada rounding off the top three most popular countries in the world. India also deserves mention as this and similar polls show that the country is steadily improving its popularity around the world.

13 Countries Ranked by Public Opinion

1. Canada
2. Japan
3. EU
4. France
5. Great Britain
6. China
7. India
8. USA
9. Russia
10. Venezuela
11. North Korea
12. Iran
13. Israel

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Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are the most popular world religions today. Approximately 1 billion people adhere to irreligious beliefs which include humanism, atheism and agnosticism, making this category of beliefs more popular than Hinduism but less popular than Islam.

Christianity is the most popular religion in the world with about 2.1 billion adherents as of 2005. The most popular religion only comprised around 33% of the total world population. Christianity considered as such a group includes differing denominations such as Roman Catholics, Southern Baptists, and Mormons.

In ranking religious denominations, the Roman Catholic Church is the most popular denomination within Christianity.

Football (soccer) is the most popular sport played today. The term soccer first appeared in the 19th century as for Association Football, and is used in the United States commonly, but the term football is used by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport’s world governing body and by most of English speakers throughout the world.

A survey in 2001 by FIFA 2001 showed more than 240 million people play the sport of football in over 200 countries across almost every part of the globe. Because of this some have named football the world’s favorite pastime, but instead we are naming football the world’s most popular sport!

It was recently reported that Google and Nike have partnered to launch Joga, a social networking website for football (soccer) enthusiasts. This is no wonder since football is the most popular and most played sport in the world!