2025 SMART21 CITIES ANNOUNCED

Communities from nine nations over five continents named as semi-finalists in ICF’s annual Intelligent Community of the Year Awards Program

At the conclusion of a conference hosted by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF), Artefact Social and the Hamilton Technology Centre, ICF named the world’s Smart21 Communities of 2025. The announcement was made at a special evening event after the “Communities in Transition Conference” in the host city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada by ICF Co-Founders John G. Jung and Robert Bell.

The Smart21 Communities of 2025 in alphabetical order are :

• Alcobendas, Spain
• Assaí, Paraná, Brazil
• Bilbao, Spain
• Brightlands-Limburg, The Netherlands
• Bursa Metropolitan Municipality, Türkiye
• Chiayi County, Taiwan
• Coral Gables, Florida, USA
• Durham Region, Ontario, Canada
• Fairfield/Jefferson County, Iowa, USA
• Grey County, Ontario, Canada
• Hilliard, Ohio, USA
• Kingston, Ontario, Canada
• Konya Metropolitan Municipality, Türkiye
• Langley City, British Columbia, Canada
• Las Rozas de Madrid, Spain
• Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia
• Pingtung County, Taiwan
• Ponta Grossa, Paraná, Brazil
• Reykjavík, Iceland
• Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain
• Warner Robins, Georgia, USA

The selection of the Smart21 Communities of the Year begins the semi-finalist phase in ICF’s annual Awards Program. On June 17, ICF will announce the Top7 Intelligent Communities as finalists in the Awards program at the Top7 Conference & Announcement in Las Rozas de Madrid, Spain. The program will conclude when ICF names the 2025 Intelligent Community of the Year at the ICF Global Summit in Binh Duong, Vietnam on October 28. One of these twenty-one communities named today will succeed Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil, the 2024 Intelligent Community of the Year.

The Smart21 Communities of 2025 include cities and counties from nine countries spread over five continents and nine first-time honorees in the Intelligent Community Awards. This year’s first-time honorees are Alcobendas, Bilbao, Brightlands-Limburg, Bursa Metropolitan Municipality, Chiayi County, Konya Metropolitan Municipality, Langley City, Parramatta and Sant Feliu de Llobregat. The announcement video may be viewedvia YouTube at The Smart21 Communities of 2025 – YouTube .

Co-Founder John G. Jung commented: “It’s amazing to see this list. Not only is it very international, there are no usual suspects of large cities on this list that everyone normally would think of when they think of smart cities and Intelligent Communities. This proves that any community of any size and location can benefit from becoming smart / Intelligent and can become a global best practice, which we recognize and celebrate at this event and future Top7 and ICF Summit events. Initially, only larger cities had the capacity and advanced interest to pursue this smart / Intelligent movement, but now many of ICF’s celebrated Smart21 communities are smaller, medium-sized and regional entities, keen to participate globally and attract jobs, talent and investment in the same way that larger cities do by promoting their advanced capabilities as part of their competitive advantages”.

Similarly ICF Co-Founder and host of The Intelligent Community podcast Louis Zacharilla observed: “The emergence of Intelligent Communities in Europe, and especially Spain, the site of last year’s ICF Summit, demonstrates the global appeal and universality of our message that any place a person calls ‘home’ can become a livable, sustainable and joyful place. But it does take effort and each of these communities around the world have put in the work.”

To view the full press release on March 6, see: https://www.intelligentcommunity.org/icf_names_the_smart21_communities_of_2025