A pit stop at the world's most colourful petrol stations

From Dubai to Vietnam, here's where to go if you want to fill up in style

This photograph taken on August 26, 2022 on Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, USA, shows the Speedway Helios House petrol station with a "green" station roof, designed of triangles made from recycled stainless steel and features solar panels. - A vintage pump in the Vietnamese hills; a Madrid petrol station topped with a giant sombrero; a multi-coloured futuristic fuel outlet in Dubai – whatever its form the humble filling stop, emblem of our modern societies, would appear to be running out of road. (Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP)

The Wissol petrol station outside Gori, Georgia.

Brazilian fuel distribution company Atem's floating petrol station on the Rio Negro river near Manaus in Brazil.

A petrol station at Legarda, near Pamplona, Spain.

This photograph taken in Alcala de Henares, near Madrid, Spain, shows a petrol station at night, past a statue of Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes's famous character Don Quixote de la Mancha, and a roof designed as his knight-errant's helmet.

A Kwik Fill petrol station in Warren, Pennsylvania, US.

A camel makes a pit stop at a fuel station in the occupied West Bank near the Palestinian city of Jericho.

A destroyed petrol station in Saltivka, a northern district of Kharkiv, Ukraine, amid the Russian invasion.

A fuel station in the Red Hook neighbourhood of Brooklyn, in New York City, US.

A fuel station in Yemeni city of Taiz.

This photograph was taken in Moscow, Russia.

A PT petrol station for boats along the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok, Thailand.

A fuel outlet in Ygos-saint-Saturnin in south-west France.

A petrol station with fuel dispensers hanging down from the ceiling in Seoul, South Korea.

Galena Mini Market's Liberty petrol station in Galena, Maryland, US.

A fuel stop in Lencois, Bahia state, Brazil.

A Matecha petrol station in Kipsarwet, Kenya.

A Del Rey petrol station in Lencois, Bahia state, Brazil.

A Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited petrol station on the outskirts of Bangalore, India.

French multinational company Auchan's fuel station in Budapest's 11th district, Hungary.

A Nayara Energy Limited petrol station on the outskirts of Bangalore, India.

An abandoned petrol station in Christiana, South Africa.

Rolphs Wharf Marina's boat petrol station, located on the Chester River in Chestertown, Maryland, US.

A Compact petrol station near the town of Gjilan, Kosovo.

A fuel outlet in the Mojave Desert city of Amboy, California, US, shows the petrol station next to Roy's Motel Cafe, along the former Route 66.

An abandoned petrol station in Belo Horizonte in Brazil, where a man has lived for more than 10 years.

A private mobile petrol station in Vietnam's Yen Bai province.

A solo pump at Kaplong-Narok-Maai Road near Ololulunga, Kenya.

An abandoned petrol station on the R38 road between Barberton and Carolina, South Africa.

An abandoned petrol station near the village of Luz near Kavaje, Albania shows .

A pump near the village of Lozhan i Ri, Albania.

A fuel station in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

A petrol pump in the Palestinian Gaza Strip enclave.

A petrol station featuring solar panels on the roof in Beijing, China.

A Shell fuel station in Hong Kong.

A pump in Roaix, France.

The biggest Russian petrol station by Neft Magistral features 40 fuel stations and an electric vehicle charging station. It is located in Moscow, Russia.

A fuel station in Yaounde, Cameroon.

A fuel station in Herten, Germany.

A petrol pump in Eagle Lake, Texas, US.

An abandoned petrol station of the state company Petroleos de Venezuela (Petroleum of Venezuela) in Caracas, Venezuela.

An abandoned petrol station near the town of Gjilan, Kosovo.

An abandoned petrol station in Loznica, Serbia.

A vintage pump in the Vietnamese hills; a Madrid petrol station topped with a giant sombrero; a multicoloured futuristic fuel outlet in Dubai — filling stops around the world have become increasingly creative.

Despite rising fuel prices, more electric vehicles and government bids to reduce our reliance on hydrocarbons, petrol stations remain emblems of modern society.

In Dubai, the brightly lit, multicoloured gas stop at Expo City, pictured below, catches the eyes of passers-by.

Below, a Pumpa station in Matuskovo, Slovakia, looks like three hovering spaceships lighting up the night sky.

In Birstall, Leicestershire, in the east midlands of England, the Red Hill petrol station features six circular canopies topped with green, something of a local landmark.

The Grade II-listed building is an example of the futuristic "Pegasus" design created by US industrial designer Eliot Noyes.

Some designs hark back to the past, such as this Axion station in Montevideo, Uruguay, that recalls nostalgia from decades ago.

This Shell petrol station, pictured a dusk, sits in the rather deserted landscape of Feira de Santana, in Bahia state, Brazil.

In many places it's just corrugated sheeting. In a typical fuel outlet in Nimba county, Liberia, pictured below, fuel is sold using jerrycans and people fill their vehicles using funnels.

Elsewhere in Africa, over in the east, a petrol station is protected by a cage at night in Kisumu, Kenya.

At night the Union 76 petrol station in Beverly Hills looks like a spaceship that has landed next to the palm trees of Little Santa Monica Boulevard. It is recognised as a prime example of Googie architecture, and was chosen by British rocker Noel Gallagher in 2011 for the cover of his first album with the High Flying Birds.

In Moscow, the oldest filling station in the city centre was established in the 1930s. Nine decades later, this sober cream and red building is still there, in the shadow of golden-domed Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Some are even being recycled, such as one former petrol station in Phnom Penh, in Cambodia, which has taken the concept of ecological transition to a logical conclusion: instead of fuel, its main product on sale now is plants.