The World's Most Livable City is the unofficial title given to any city listed because it ranks highest in annual surveys on the quality of life. According to The Economist Intelligence Unit's global livability ranking, which rates 140 cities in five lifestyle categories, six of the top ten livable cities in the world are located in Australia and Canada.
Vienna has surpassed Auckland to become the most livable city in the world, two years later, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit report. The latest ranking of the most livable cities in the world, published by, has revealed Melbourne topping the table, ahead of Vienna and Vancouver. Vienna has once again topped the most livable cities list, an annual index published by the British weekly newspaper The Economist. The Most Livable Cities List, an annual index published by the British weekly newspaper The Economist. New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Switzerland all took the top 10 spots on The Economist Intelligence Unit's the latest annual ranking of the most livable cities in the world.
One of those cities is Melbourne, which has been named by The Economist as the most livable city in the world since 2011. Melbourne has maintained its position as one of the most livable cities in the world, at number 10, while the other Australian capitals fall outside the top 10. Melbourne held the top spot for seven years starting in 2011 before the Austrian capital displaced Melbourne in 2018. Melbourne, Australia, was named by the world's most livable city for seven years running, from 2011-2017.
In this ranking, London, the UK's capital, was ranked as the world's 33rd most livable city, lagging behind Manchester in 28th. In 2021, last year's winners had led the global living index; this year, the city fell down the rankings to 33rd. Vienna was first in 2018 and 2019 but was surpassed during the pandemic by Auckland, New Zealand, falling to 12th in 2021, according to the Global Livability Index 2022.
Wellington, New Zealand, and Tokyo, Japan, were ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, and Perth, Melbourne, and Brisbane, Australia, were ranked sixth, ninth, and 10th. Australia, Japan, and New Zealand took top positions, with European and Canadian cities falling further down the rankings. Regions, where cities are typically in the top 50, included Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Europe.
Hong Kong has the dubious distinction of being the number one spot, while New York, Geneva, London, and Paris, as well as Tokyo, complete the top five. Australian cities saw the most entries into the top 10, with four entries: Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Melbourne came first, Vienna was second, and Vancouver was third, while Toronto, Calgary, Adelaide, and Perth completed the top seven, although there was little difference in the quality of life scores between cities ranked 15-20. Australia had four cities in the top 10 - Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth - last year, but only Melbourne held on this year, scraping by in 10th with Osaka, Japan.
The winner was announced as Vienna, squeezing Melbourne from the top spot. U.S. News and World Report have analyzed 125 of the nation's most populous metropolitan areas in order to find out which cities are in the Top 50 places to live. The sister organization to The Economist ranks 173 cities worldwide based on various factors, including healthcare, crime rates, political stability, infrastructure, and access to green spaces. Three Canadian cities have been named in the top 10 on the Global Living Index, a year-long ranking by The Economist Intelligence Unit that rates 172 cities worldwide on more than 30 factors, ranging from healthcare, infrastructure, education, and crime rates to access to cultural and sporting activities and access to green space.
The Economist Intelligence Unit's annual Global Livability ranking ranks 140 cities for their quality of life as an urban area, based on assessments of their stability, health, culture, environment, education, and infrastructure. It ranks them based on factors such as crime, education, infrastructure, healthcare, and political and social stability. One critique of Mercer's quality-of-living ranking is that it does not consider a city's cost of living, although, surprisingly, produces a global study on the cost of living. This is a crucially important measure of what people's lives are like in cities across these countries, and I am happy to see that included in the rankings.
Which turns out to be one contributing factor to the determination of which cities are considered the most livable in the world. The three rankings that I would like to discuss in this post are more focused on the livability of the city rather than on the power and economic impact on the globe. The Most Expensive Cities rankings are determined entirely by economic factors--average rent, the price of gas, and so on--as opposed to the EU's list, which looks at cultural attractions such as museums and concerts, and infrastructure such as mass transit.
The latest Cost of Living study, from 2015, found that Singapore is the world's most expensive city, while Sydney (at 5) and Melbourne (at 6) are also top 10, but New York, London, and Tokyo are not. Additionally, Forbes magazine releases a list every year of the most influential cities in the world, which was again led by London, New York, Paris, Singapore, and Tokyo in 2014. Another interesting remark is Copenhagen ranking, which is ranked number 22 on the list, whereas Monocles' top 25 quality of life poll placed Copenhagen at number 3. Vienna, the capital of Austria, held the top position for all of 2018-20, according but has fallen down to number 12 in the current survey, following the second surge in Covid-19, while German cities like Frankfurt, Hamburg, and saw their ranks drop most significantly.
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