Public Perceptions of Ecology, Facilities, and Social Atmosphere in Bangkok’s Urban Parks: An Exploratory Analysis of 7,585 Google Maps Reviews

Urban park reviews provide a large, low-cost record of how visitors describe everyday green-space experiences, although such data require careful interpretation. This study analyzes 7,585 English-translated Google Maps reviews from 20 urban parks in Bangkok, Thailand, using three transparent lexicon-based signals: ecology, facilities, and social atmosphere. The analytical dataset was derived from an initial collection of 14,965 review records. Direct incidence of focal terms was calculated for individual reviews and then aggregated by park. Facility-related language appeared in 36.0% of reviews, social-atmosphere language in 29.5%, and ecology-related language in 25.8%; 59.1% of reviews contained at least one focal signal. Substantial park-level variation was observed. Lumphini Park had the highest ecology signal among parks with substantial review counts (45.0%), Benjakitti Park had the highest facility signal (50.1%), and Princess Mother Memorial Park had the highest social-atmosphere signal among parks with at least 100 reviews (40.3%). These findings demonstrate the value of online reviews for identifying recurring dimensions of park experience while also highlighting the need to account for self-selection, translation, and keyword ambiguity when interpreting user-generated content.