The World’s Most Livable Cities.
04.09.2025Every year, the Economist Intelligence Unit publishes the EIU’s Global Liveability Index. The index assesses 173 cities worldwide across 30 indicators, categorised into stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. It evaluates living conditions in cities worldwide, identifying the best and worst places to live.
In it’s 2025 edition, Copenhagen has claimed the top spot, ending Vienna’s three-year dominance. Copenhagen achieved perfect scores of 100 for stability, education and infrastructure, moving up from second place to become the world’s most comfortable city to live in; Zurich shares the second rank with Vienna on the list.
According to EIU, cities in western Europe and developed Asia continue to dominate the top of the rankings. Melbourne came in fourth, with Sydney and Adelaide also making the top ten. Other leading cities were spread across Japan, New Zealand and Canada.
The EUI writes: “However, western European cities also appear on the list of the biggest movers down the ranks in 2025. All the cities covered in the UK (London, Manchester and Edinburgh) have dropped down the ranks, following widespread riots and rising homelessness. Two Canadian cities (Calgary, Toronto) are also among them, as we have lowered the healthcare scores for all four Canadian cities in our index. However, North American cities remain highly sought-after places to live in, with all 21 reporting the highest tier of liveability (defined as a score of 80 or above).
On a more positive note, scores for healthcare, education and infrastructure all saw marginal improvements on average. The Middle East and North Africa region registered the most significant gains in overall liveability, primarily driven by advancements in healthcare and education within cities in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”
To find out how your city has fared, download the free summary report here.
How does the EIU’s liveability survey work?
The concept of liveability is simple. It assesses which locations around the world provide the best – and worst – living conditions. The liveability scores have a broad range of applications, from benchmarking perceived development levels to assigning hardship allowances as part of expatriate relocation packages. Our liveability ratings quantify the challenges to an individual’s lifestyle expectations in any given location and allow for direct comparison between locations.
Every city is assigned a rating of relative comfort for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors, across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Each factor in a city is rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable. For qualitative indicators, we award a rating based on the judgement of our in-house analysts and in-city contributors. For quantitative indicators, a rating is calculated based on the relative performance of a number of external data points.
The scores are then compiled and weighted to provide a score of 1-100, where 1 is considered intolerable and 100 is considered ideal. The liveability rating is provided both as an overall score and as a score for each category. To provide points of reference, the score is also given for each category relative to New York and an overall position in the ranking of 173 cities is provided.