Brighton has been named one of the best cities in the country for chocolate lovers.

New ratings show that the city’s nine major chocolate shops helped to propel it to fourth in a survey ranking cities based on their love of chocolate.

The city was narrowly pipped to the top three chocolate loving cities in the country by York, Edinburgh and Birmingham.

Once home to the famous Choccywoccydoodah shop in The Lanes, Brighton is now home to nine chocolate shops with an average rating on Google of 4.6 stars.

Nearly 9,000 searches for chocolate were made in Brighton in the last year according to the study by hotel operator Leonardo.

A weighted ranking of cities placed Brighton fourth with a score of 53 out of 100.

The study also found that dark chocolate was the nation’s favourite.