The New York Post ranked Malta as Europe's most overcrowded island destination in an article published this week.
On Tuesday, the New York Post published a story listing Europe's 15 most overcrowded island destinations by analysing the size of the destination in comparison to the number of tourists hosted.
Mainland Malta topped its charts while the islands of Gozo and Comino ranked within this Top 15, in 14th place.
For placing atop this ranking, the New York Post went into detail on Malta's overcrowding and implied overtourism.
"It's a crammed, jammed vacation destination," the New York Post wrote on Malta.
The American journal reported that, according to a new study, Malta Europe's most overcrowded island for 2026; it boiled this down to Malta's openness to welcoming visitors from all over the world.
"While the official motto of Malta isn't 'the more the merrier,' it seems the itty-bitty, buzzy hotspot, smack-dab in the central Mediterranean Sea, is steadily welcoming visitors from all corners of the Earth," the New York Post published.
It added that experts warn how Malta's "eye-popping popularity" may eventually cause the country's collapse.
The New York Post publicised that while Mallorca attracts the largest number of tourists overall, "no island concentrates tourism quite like Malta." It pointed out that Malta is the tenth smallest country in the world, with a land area of just 316 square kilometres, making it "tiny enough to fit inside New York City and London nearly three and five times, respectively."
In this article, the co-founder of BookRetreats, Sean Kelly, said that "the data highlights just how concentrated the pressure is, with Malta topping the list, cramming over 38,000 overnight stays per km², and three of the five most overloaded islands in the Canaries."
Kelly told the New York Post that "these places weren't built for millions of visitors a year, and the protests we're seeing across Europe are a clear sign that the way we travel needs to shift."
The American portal also spoke to the person behind the online page "Overtouristed Malta," whose page has racked up thousands of views and a significant following in just a few weeks since its launch. The page has been vocal that "Malta is too small for over 4 million tourists a year." The person behind it, Michaela Pia Camilleri, had told The Malta Independent on Sunday earlier this June that Malta's tourism model has prioritised visitor numbers over residents' quality of life, and uses her page to document consequences of this.
The New York Post noted that "concerns and complaints withstanding," the Maltese government is still aiming to grow the number of inbound tourist arrivals to 4.5 million by 2034, adding that this would be "putting the oasis at risk of ruin." The New York Post failed to mention however that 4.5 million tourists are expected to come to the Maltese islands in 2026 alone - eight years ahead of schedule.
Following Malta in the New York Post's article for most overcrowded European island destinations were three of the seven Spanish Canary Islands (Lanzarote in second place, Tenerife in fourth, and Gran Canaria in fifth) and Ibiza and Formentera in third place to round up the Top 5.
The list is almost fully made up of Spanish and Greek islands, with the exception of Madeira, Portugal in ninth place and Gozo and Comino put together in fourteenth place.