About this site

This site answers one question for one moment: can you drink the tap water where you are? It covers 249 countries and around 2,500 cities. No verdict here stands on its own: the numbers sit underneath it, with a link to whoever measured them.

The bottled water industry has spent decades trading on fear, uncertainty and doubt, and it works. People play safe and buy bottled in places where the tap is more tightly regulated than the bottle and costs a fraction as much.

The data comes from the WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, the US CDC, Numbeo and local water authorities. Each is named and linked on the page where it is used.

Why I built it

I grew up in the Alps, where my hometown sits on groundwater better than most of what is sold in bottles. As a child I drank from the tap without thinking about it.

In 2016 I started travelling, and stopped being sure. I defaulted to bottled water without checking, and grew to hate the pile of plastic that habit produced. When I finally went looking properly, the answer was buried under blog posts and forum threads, and the WHO and CDC figures that settle it were nowhere near the top of the results. This site is what I wanted to find.

Sascha Mayr · @_sidehacker

Disclaimer

This site is informational. National and city figures describe a supply area, not individual buildings, and old pipework inside a building can change what arrives. I take no responsibility for decisions made on the basis of what you read here, or for the sites I link to.

If something here is wrong and you have a better source, tell me and I will correct it and pass it on.