Vienna named best city to live in for ninth year running

The Austrian capital tops the list for the ninth year running

Vienna's St. Stephen Cathedral (Getty Images/iStockphoto/Stellalevi)

Vienna has been named the best city in the world for quality of living, according to a new survey.

Now in its 20th year, the annual Mercer Quality of Living survey has crowned it the best place in the world for the ninth year in a row.

Slagin Parakatil, who carried out the survey, told The Independent:

“Vienna is the cultural, political and economic centre of Austria, and scores highly in a number of categories.

"Among others, the city provides a safe and stable environment for expatriates to live in; it has an extensive offering of international consumer goods, a high level of public utilities and transportation facilities, and good recreational facilities.

"All of the above combined resulted in Vienna being placed top.”

Eight of the top 10 (10th place had two joint winners) cities in 2018 are European, with Auckland, Vancouver and Sydney representing other continents.

This year, Mercer also analysed cities which had seen the biggest jump in quality of living over the last 20 years.

In Europe, Sarajevo came out on top with an increase of 21.5 per cent, followed by Bratislava (19.1) and Belgrade (18.3), while Vienna also featured in the top 10 with a jump of 5.2 per cent.

Other cities around the world which enjoyed a notable climb in quality of living included Havana (6.5), Dubai (12.2), Maputo (15), Shanghai (15.7) and New Delhi (13.8).

For the first time, Mercer also released a ranking on City Sanitation analysing cities’ waste removal and sewage infrastructure, levels of infectious disease, air pollution, water availability and quality. Honolulu came out on top of this one, followed by Helsinki, Ottawa and Minneapolis.

Despite Brexit, London remains an attractive location for companies to locate their employees, according to the company.

Hawaiian state capital Honolulu came top of Mercer's first ranking on City Sanitation (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

“Cities in the UK continue to rank highly for quality of living, and remain attractive destinations for multinationals and their employees,” said Mercer's Kate Fitzpatrick in a statement.

“London - the highest ranked UK city - scores top marks in areas like access to public transport, and the variety and quality of theatres and restaurants, but has lower scores for air pollution and traffic congestion.

“We will continue to closely monitor the impact of ongoing Brexit negotiations and their effect on workforce and skills availability in the UK, to support multinational companies with their expatriate management programmes.”

The Quality of Living top 10 2018

1. Vienna, Austria 
2. Zurich, Switzerland 
3. Auckland, New Zealand  
4. Munich, Germany 
5. Vancouver, Canada 
6. Dusseldorf, Germany 
7. Frankfurt, Germany 
8. Geneva, Switzerland 
9. Copenhagen, Denmark 
10. Basel, Switzerland; Sydney, Australia