Zurich and Geneva have been named as two of the best places to live in the world by the latest Global Liveability Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). After falling down the ranking in 2023, the Swiss metropolis has returned to the podium places.

Global Liveability Index 2024

Every year, the EIU uses the Global Liveability Index to rank which cities around the world are the best to live in. This year, 173 cities across the world were ranked through 30 different criteria, with their scores incorporated into the five main categories:

• Stability: Crime and the threat of terror, military conflict or unrest.
• Healthcare: Quality and availability of private and public healthcare, access to medicine.
• Culture and Environment: Weather, levels of corruption and censorship, access to food, drink, consumer goods and sporting and cultural activities.
• Education: Availability and quality of public schools and private education.
• Infrastructure: Strength of the road, motorway, public transport and international links, quality of energy, water and telecommunications networks and access to housing.

Every city on the list was given a score out of 100 for every category, with each given a specific weighting when calculating the overall score: Stability and Culture and Environment are valued the most (25 percent weighting each), followed by Healthcare (20 percent), Infrastructure (20 percent) and Education (10 percent). 

According to the EIU, if a city has an overall score of 80 or above, “There are few, if any, challenges to living standards.” 

Global living standards stagnate in 2024

This year, the organisation noted that global liveability scores have only increased slightly, after rising significantly in 2023. “Declines in stability and infrastructure across a number of cities in advanced economies were offset by structural improvements in healthcare and education in several cities in developing markets,” the report noted.

For 2024, Vienna was rated as the best place to live in the world for the third year in a row with an overall score of 98,4. The Austrian capital was given perfect scores in all but the Culture and Environment category - the EIU noted that it did not get 100 for culture due to “a lack of major sporting events.” In second place with perfect scores in all but the Healthcare and Culture categories was the Danish city of Copenhagen.

Zurich is the third-best city to live in

Rounding out the podium this year was Zurich with an overall score of 97,1. The largest city in Switzerland has seen its standing rise significantly over the last year, having placed sixth in 2023. According to the EIU, the main reason for Zurich’s resurgence in the ranking was that both of the leading Australian cities (Sydney and Melbourne), which placed third and fourth last year, “have slipped down [the ranking] amid a significant shortfall in housing availability.”

While Zurich is also beset by an ongoing housing crisis - which hurt the city’s Infrastructure score - the Swiss metropolis cemented its position on the podium with perfect scores for healthcare and education, and by beating the top two for Culture and Environment. 

Geneva places seventh in liveability ranking

Just a few rungs down was the city of Geneva, which rose from joint-seventh in 2023 to place joint-fifth alongside Calgary in Canada. While the city matched Zurich for Healthcare, Education, Stability and Infrastructure, it was rated slightly worse for Culture and Environment.

By contrast, like last year, the Syrian Capital of Damascus was rated as the least liveable city in the world, followed by Tripoli in Libya. “Following years of civil war that has wrecked their economies, both cities score very poorly for stability and have not seen any improvement in liveability,” the EIU noted.

10 most liveable cities in the world

In all, these are the 10 most liveable cities in the world in 2024, according to the EIU:

• 1. Vienna, Austria
• 2. Copenhagen, Denmark
• 3. Zurich, Switzerland
• 4. Melbourne, Australia
• =5. Calgary, Canada
• =5. Geneva, Switzerland
• =7. Sydney, Australia
• =7. Vancouver, Canada
• =9. Osaka, Japan
• =9. Auckland, New Zealand

For more information about the study, check out the EIU website.

Thumb image credit: Victor Jiang / Shutterstock.com