LONDON – Vienna, the capital of Austria, has the best quality of life among more than 220 cities around the world, according to a report published by Mercer, Bloomberg reported. Baghdad took the last place – 221st - in Mercer's ranking as it has the worst quality of life as well as being the most dangerous place to live.
Zurich is in second place in the ranking.
The top ten of the ranking includes only two non-European cities – Auckland (3rd place) and Vancouver (6th place).
Munich is in fourth place and is followed by Dusseldorf, Frankfurt-am-Main, Geneva, Bern and Copenhagen.
The top-ranked U.S. city for quality of living is San Francisco in joint 30th place with Adelaide and Paris, eight places ahead of London. New York is 47th.
Singapore, which is ranked 25th, is the best-placed Asian city for quality of living and safety.
Russia’s Moscow and Saint Petersburg were assigned with 163rd and 165th places. Interestingly, Kyiv (161st) has a slightly better quality of life.
Moscow was behind Vilnius (79th), Tallinn (89th) and Riga (91st). Meanwhile, quality of life in Yerevan (173rd), Minsk (182nd), Baku (195th) and Tbilisi (214th) was worse than in Moscow or Saint Petersburg.
From the viewpoint of personal safety, Luxemburg, Bern and Helsinki are the best cities.
Singapore, Auckland and Wellington took the eighth, ninth and tenth places, respectively, in terms of the level of personal safety.
Saint Petersburg is 173rd and Moscow is 199th in the ranking personal safety.
Tbilisi has the worst level of personal safety. It took only 215th place in the ranking. Baghdad shared the last position in this ranking.
Mercer conducted this survey to calculate what extra payments experts should expect when moving to live and work to other cities.
The cities were assessed from the viewpoint of the infrastructure development, medical and recreation services affordability, political and economic stability, and the levels of education, utilities and other services.
