While Hollywood has spent decades convincing us that cities like Paris, New York, and London are the ultimate places to live, the data tells a different story.
According to the annual Global Liveability Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Copenhagen is the world’s most livable city for the second year in a row. The report ranks 173 cities based on factors including education, stability, healthcare, infrastructure, and culture.
The Danish capital earned the No. 1 spot by achieving a perfect score in stability, infrastructure, and education, and earning high scores for the other factors as well. Copenhagen edged out Vienna, which ranked second, and Melbourne, Australia, which ranked third.
While no American city made the top 10, the EIU—a sister company to The Economist—did see some surprising improvement in key cities. New York, for example, saw the biggest score leap out of all the indexed cities, moving up three places on the list. The unprecedented improvement reflects the “years of falling crime rates and a reduced risk of a major terrorist attack,” the report says.
But still, the concrete jungle remains the third-lowest-ranking U.S. city on the list. Honolulu, the top-ranked American city, is 25th overall.
Surprising improvements were also spotted across regions. Western Europe remains the dominant region for livability, but Asia is on the rise. While the current top 20 ranking features European cities higher up, there are only seven versus nine in Asia.
The rise in the ranks for many Asian cities is attributed to improvements in the healthcare sector. Among Asian countries, China is the biggest upward mover of the year.
These are the top 10 most livable cities according to the EIU:
- Copenhagen
- Vienna
- Melbourne
- Sydney
- Zurich
- Geneva
- Osaka, Japan
- Adelaide, Australia
- Vancouver
- Tokyo