These are the world’s most liveable cities in 2023

Three UK cities among those to have seen the biggest fall down the rankings

Vienna tops the list for the second year in a row (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Vienna has been named the world’s most liveable city for the second year in a row.

The capital of Austria retains the spot it’s held in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Liveability Index ranking for eight of the last 10 surveys.

The report, released today (22 June), states that the City of Music performs well as it “continues to offer an unsurpassed combination of stability, good infrastructure, strong education and healthcare services, and plenty of culture and entertainment.”

The only downside for Vienna is “a relative lack of major sporting events”. The Austrian capital slipped down the rankings in 2021, when its famous museums and restaurants faced restrictions to contain the pandemic.

Copenhagen, in Denmark, remains in the runner-up position, and is described as having a similarly positive offering for residents.

Three UK cities – Edinburgh (now 58th), Manchester (44th) and London (46th) – are among the locations with the biggest drops down the ranking.

Melbourne is ranked in third place (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The 2023 report shows a significant rise in the EIU’s “Liveability Index”, which has reached a 15-year high as the world moves on from Covid-19, and with healthcare and education improving in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

A shift away from pandemic restrictions has helped the Australian cities of Melbourne and Sydney bounce back up the rankings to third and fourth place, following a sharp tumble in 2022.

Three cities in Canada, two in Switzerland, and two in Asia (a New Zealand and Japanese city are joint 10th) make up the rest of the top 10.

Western European cities have slipped down the rankings in the 2023 survey, with increased instances of industrial action and civil unrest hurting their stability ratings, meaning they have failed to match gains made by cities in Asia and the Middle East.

The EIU assigned each city a rating based on 30 factors across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Each factor is then rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable. For qualitative indicators, a rating is awarded based on “the judgement of in-house analysts and in-city contributors”, the report says, while the rating of quantitative indicators is “based on the relative performance of a number of external data points.”

Upasana Dutt, head of the Liveability Index at EIU, said: “As the world’s political and economic axis continues to shift eastwards, we expect the cities in these regions to move slowly up our liveability rankings.”

The world’s most best cities to live in 2023

1	Vienna, Austria
2	Copenhagen, Denmark
3	Melbourne, Australia
4	Sydney, Australia
5	Vancouver, Canada
6	Zurich, Switzerland
7	Calgary, Canada
8	Geneva, Switzerland
9	Toronto, Canada
10	Osaka, Japan Auckland, New Zealand