Cities around the world have had to adapt so that they can function while keeping their citizens safe from coronavirus. We take a look at what business and social lives in urban areas look like now, from social distancing circles in parks to the city that has transformed itself into an open-air café. Click or scroll through to see how cities are adapting to life in the COVID-19 era.

At the end of April the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius turned itself into a vast open-air café, giving up public spaces to bars, restaurants and cafés to allow physical distancing as the city started to ease out of lockdown. By placing tables outdoors in the city's plazas, squares and streets, these businesses have not only been able to reopen, but receive more customers, and therefore recover quicker.

In early May, Thailand’s lockdown restrictions began to loosen, which included the opening of restaurants, hair salons, parks, markets and other venues. To minimise the risk of infection, many restaurants installed barriers between customers at tables, made from materials such as pipe and plastic sheeting.

Café culture is back in France – but it looks very different. When Parisian cafés and bars reopened on 15 June after two months of strict lockdown, it was on the condition that they could only serve customers outside. However, they were also granted extra space on pavements and in parking spaces (pictured) so that they could serve as many customers as possible outdoors, while following social distancing measures. Since then cafés and restaurants have been given the green light to serve customers indoors too, but at limited capacity. Mayor Anne Hidalgo has said that the extended terraces will stay until at least the end of September.

New York is another city allowing its restaurants to extend their outside seating areas onto sidewalks and beyond. As the city slowly opens up, from 24 June outdoor dining was allowed, and here diners at Via Carota are able to sit in a cordoned off area in the road. New York has opened up 40 miles (64km) of streets to pedestrians and businesses, and plans to add a further 100 miles (160km) in order to make social distancing easier for New Yorkers.

A far cry from the busy, chaotic atmosphere you might usually associate with a street market, in Surabaya, Indonesia vendors are practising social distancing via a simple grid system drawn on the ground. 

Across the world drive-in cinemas are gaining popularity as a novel way to watch movies while respecting social distancing. In the capital of Lithuania, organisers of the Vilnius International Film Festival partnered with the city airport to create the Autokino drive-in cinema on an airfield.

Drive-in movie theatres have become hugely popular in South Korea too. In this drive-in cinema in the capital of Seoul, families park up to enjoy a movie while keeping at a safe distance from others.

And it's not only films that are making the most of drive-ins. In Asunción, Paraguay, a drive-in Catholic mass led by Archbishop Edmundo Valenzuela took place at the Silvio Pettirossi International Airport car park on 28 June. The creative repurposing of cities' outdoor spaces for meetings such as religious services is one of the main ways gatherings of larger groups have been possible.

Some countries are still holding religious services in places of worship, but the logistics are a little different after lockdown. At Capela das Almas church in the city of Porto, Portugal, ropes have been used to designate a safe distance between seats, while the number of churchgoers has been limited. Those who do attend must wear face masks. Rituals such as sharing bread and wine are off the cards for a while too.

At Islam's holiest shrine – the Kaaba – in Mecca only a limited number of pilgrims will be able to perform the annual ritual of hajj this year due to the coronavirus outbreak. In fact, only pilgrims who are already in the kingdom will be permitted to attend. The shrine has reduced the number of worshippers in general; in this picture a small group performs the daily al-Fajr prayer on 23 June.

Politics isn’t back to business as usual yet either. In this picture Nepal's Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli attends a cabinet meeting with government officials on 14 April during a nationwide lockdown. Tables are carefully spaced to allow for physical distancing and attendees wear protective masks.

At the end of June voters attending a ballot on nationwide constitutional reforms in Russia have had their temperatures checked as they enter the building, as pictured here in Moscow. Election officials actually opened polls earlier than the 1 July voting date in order to prevent overcrowding when people came to vote.

Local authorities have also had to be creative with their space during lockdown. The residents of Worcester, Massachusetts turned Auburn High football field into a venue for their town hall meeting on 2 June.

Law and order has been greatly affected by the new normal, with courts having to adapt to social distancing measures. Here a constitutional court in Karlsruhe, Germany has fewer people in the room, with judges spaced out to follow Germany’s 1.5-metre (five-feet) social distancing rules. Some attendees wear face masks.

It’s Disneyland, but not as you knew it. On 11 May, Disneyland Shanghai reopened with new features: markers were painted on pavements indicating how to keep a safe distance from others, visitor numbers were capped at a third of usual capacity, and entry times were staggered. Many visitors were also seen donning a face mask along with the usual Mickey Mouse ears. 

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From above they have a look of urban crop circles, but these markers in a park in Toronto, Canada are spray-painted onto the grass as a social distancing reminder. This simple method has been employed by the city to try to reduce the risk of overcrowding, and to give park-goers a clear sense of distance. Other cities, such as New York and San Francisco in the US, have also used this tactic in parks.

In early April, San Francisco officials moved the city’s homeless population into shelters and hotels to reduce the risk of infection. Yet as the number of tent cities and makeshift shelters in the city crept up, officials opened a “safe sleeping village” in an empty McDonald’s car park near City Hall to curb informal settlements and enforce social distancing. The city’s first sanctioned homeless encampment, it includes markers on the ground with spots for up to 50 tents. 

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As social distancing restrictions remain on most of public transport options, Romans have taken advantage of the influx of electric scooters and quieter roads to get around safely. Rome only authorised the scooters in the city on 1 March, just as the coronavirus pandemic was starting to take hold, and now that lockdown has eased they are contributing to the changing face of the city.

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