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Top 50 cities: Quality of living ranking

The start point is the Mercer guide from 2010 but PocketInfo will apply other Input and add to this list over the next few months. Mercer has released the 2011 Quality of Life figures and a summary can be seen after the table.
Base City: New York, US (=100)
City Rank Global City Name Country PI Trend
1 VIENNA AUSTRIA 1 Majestic Buildings
2 ZURICH SWITZERLAND 2 Cosmopolitan Chic
3 GENEVA SWITZERLAND 3 Majesty by the Lake
4 VANCOUVER CANADA 4 West Coast Jewel
4 AUCKLAND NEW ZEALAND 5 Polynesian 'Capital'
6 DUSSELDORF GERMANY 6
7 FRANKFURT GERMANY 7 Glass Facade
7 MUNICH GERMANY 8 One Cool City
9 BERN SWITZERLAND 9 Smooth
10 SYDNEY AUSTRALIA 10 (Housing Bubble)
11 COPENHAGEN DENMARK 11 Bike Heaven
12 WELLINGTON NEW ZEALAND 12 Cool Capital
13 AMSTERDAM NETHERLANDS 13 Bladerunner was right
14 OTTAWA CANADA 14
15 BRUSSELS BELGIUM 15 Really?
16 TORONTO CANADA 16 Emerging
17 BERLIN GERMANY 17 East merges into West
18 MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA 18 Sports 'Capital'
19 LUXEMBOURG LUXEMBOURG 19 More Bankers
20 STOCKHOLM SWEDEN 20 Eco City of the North
21 PERTH AUSTRALIA 21 High quality living
21 MONTREAL CANADA 22
23 HAMBURG GERMANY 23 Canal Heaven
24 NURNBURG GERMANY 24
24 OSLO NORWAY 25 Peace Awoken
26 CANBERRA AUSTRALIA 26 Gillards Retreat
26 DUBLIN IRELAND 27 To be sure
28 CALGARY CANADA 28
28 SINGAPORE SINGAPORE 29 Safest Asian City!
30 STUTTGART GERMANY 30
31 HONOLULU UNITED STATES 31 Surfs Up
32 ADELAIDE AUSTRALIA 32 Cricket Season is here
32 SAN FRANCISCO UNITED STATES 33 The fog is lifting
34 PARIS FRANCE 34 Romance is in the air
35 HELSINKI FINLAND 35
36 BRISBANE AUSTRALIA 36
37 BOSTON UNITED STATES 37 The Walking City
38 LYON FRANCE 38
39 LONDON UNITED KINGDOM 39 Pivotal point
40 TOKYO JAPAN 40 Neon Dream
41 MILAN ITALY 41 Fashion Hub
41 KOBE JAPAN 42 More than Meat
41 YOKOHAMA JAPAN 43
44 BARCELONA SPAIN 44 Edgy and Pacy
45 LISBON PORTUGAL 45 Gothic
45 CHICAGO UNITED STATES 46 Tall and Smart
45 WASHINGTON UNITED STATES 47 Cleaned Up
48 MADRID SPAIN 48 Hot and 'cool'
49 NEW YORK CITY UNITED STATES 49 Re-open
50 SEATTLE UNITED STATES 50 Not so grungy


2011 Mercer Data
Vienna has the best living standard in the world, according to the Mercer 2011 Quality of Living Survey. Zurich and Auckland follow in second and third position, respectively, and Munich is in fourth with Düsseldorf and Vancouver sharing fifth place. Frankfurt is in seventh, followed by Geneva in eighth, while Copenhagen and Bern share ninth place.


European cities represent over half the cities amongst the top 25 in the ranking . London (38) is the highest-ranking UK city and is followed by Birmingham (52), Aberdeen (54) and Glasgow (56). Belfast (63) is the lowest-ranking of the UK cities that Mercer surveys. Globally, the cities with the lowest quality of living are Khartoum, Sudan (217), Port-au-Prince, Haiti (218), N’Djamena, Chad (219), and Bangui, Central African Republic (220). Baghdad, Iraq (221) ranks last in Mercer’s table.

The worldwide rankings are produced annually from the most recent Worldwide Quality of Living Survey, conducted by Mercer. Individual reports are produced for each city surveyed. Comparative quality-of-living indexes between a base city and a host city are available, as are multiple-city comparisons. Further information is available from Mercer Client Services in Warsaw, on tel. +48 22 434 5383. Or see www.mercer.com/qualityofliving

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City Guides , Mercer Benchmark , 2011 Mercer , Quality of Living - updated Nov 30th 2011

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