Answer: Japan

Although the Japanese didn’t invent the vending machine, they’ve embraced it with a passion. The ratio of vending machines to Japanese citizens is a staggering 1:23. By comparison, a large country like the United States would need close to 13.8 million vending machines in operation to even come close to that ratio.

While it would be easy to chalk up the enormous number of vending machines to a vague sense that Japan is a culture in love with technology and automation, there are actually concrete economic reasons for the prevalence of vending machines. A very high population density combined with a high cost of labor makes unattended distribution of goods very appealing to businesses. Combine those factors with the very low rate of vandalism and petty crime in Japan and you have a perfect market for automated machines that sell everything from beverages to bike parts.