Where Bridget should look

Bridget Jones was right all along - a good man is hard to find.

Amid the empty bottles of Chardonnay and the crumpled cigarette packets littering her one-bedroom flat in London, her agonising search for love took months.

But it had nothing to do with her sex appeal or lack of it - she was simply looking in the wrong place.

Women seeking the rare commodity of a single man should abandon the city lights and head for the hills.

According to new research, conducted by community website upmystreet.com, rural areas of Britain have the highest ratio of men to women. But London holds better news for men, with seven of the top 10 places to meet single women being boroughs in the capital.

Women outnumber men in Hackney, Wandsworth, Barking, Islington, Haringey, Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea.

Barry Holloway, marketing director for upmystreet.com, said: "It looks like the guys should give up their rural retreats in favour of urban chic apartments and the girls need to swap their studio flats for country cottages."

It is women in Richmond, North Yorkshire, who come out on top - with each one having more than two single men to choose from.

Bridgnorth in Shropshire, followed by Rutland, Britain's smallest county, follow closely behind, with 45 per cent more single women than men.

The research found both sexes valued personality most of all in potential lovers, while money and a good job were least important. Women looked first for a good sense of humour, then intelligence, followed by similar political leanings, a nice car and good looks.

Men placed less importance on a meeting of minds and more on a nice car. Good looks followed next, above humour, compatible political views and intelligence. Searching for a partner has become big business in Britain. Thousands of internet sites now offer the chance of true love, with tens of thousands joining every day.

Females in their twenties outnumber men of the same age by 81,300 in England and Wales. Those in their thirties outnumber men by 132,633. Experts say the number of single women goes some way to explaining the plunging birth rate, with women taking longer to find a partner.