The ranking of the world’s most liveable cities for 2023 has just been announced and Vienna has once again emerged as the topmost liveable city for 2023.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister organization to The Economist, ranked 173 cities globally against significant factors such as healthcare, education, stability, infrastructure, and environment to determine their ranking.
Vienna (Austria) tops the rankings for 2023, owing to its winning combination of stability, good culture and entertainment, reliable infrastructure, and exemplary education and health services. It has occupied this position regularly over the past several years, with only the covid-19 pandemic causing the city to vacate its place at the top spot.
Copenhagen (Denmark) takes second place, while a shift towards normality after the pandemic has helped the Australian cities of Melbourne and Sydney to 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 a Japanese city are joint tenth) make up the rest of the top ten positions.
Asia-Pacific cities have made some of the biggest gains, accounting for eight of top ten movers up the rankings as economies recover from the pandemic. Wellington (New Zealand) has soared by 35 places to 23rd place, Auckland (New Zealand) by 25, while Hanoi (Vietnam) has moved up 20 spots, as their covid restrictions were lifted.
Kyiv is back in the survey, having been forced out by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. However, the city ranks a lowly 165th out of the 173 cities in the survey, with its stability and infrastructure damaged by the war. Moscow (Russia), which fell to 96th place in 2022, has remained stable this year.
Top 10 Most Liveable Cities for 2023
With covid restrictions diminished, the 2023 survey (conducted between February 13th and March 12th) shows a noticeable improvement across the world. The average index score across all 172 cities (excluding Kyiv) in our survey has now reached 76.2 out of 100, up from 73.2 a year ago. This is the highest score in 15 years for the original comparable list of 140 cities.
Healthcare scores have improved the most, with smaller gains for education, culture and environment, and infrastructure. Only stability has seen a small decline, reflecting increasing perceptions of corruption and civil unrest in many cities amid a cost-of-living crisis, as well as an uptick in crime in some cities.
Where to Live in 2023?
If you’re searching for a great place to live this year, then you may want to take a closer look at the world’s top 10 most livable cities.
You may also consider The Asia-Pacific region, which has done away with the last of its covid restrictions, leads the gains. The biggest climber Wellington, has leaped a remarkable 35 places in the survey, to 23rd position. The second biggest climber is nearby Auckland, while the third is Perth, in Australia. In all, eight of the top ten climbers in the rankings are from the Asia-Pacific region, with cities such as Hanoi (Vietnam) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) also bouncing upwards. The biggest two non-Asian climbers are Romania’s capital, Bucharest, and Stuttgart in Germany, which both saw improvements in the healthcare category following the removal of their last covid-related restrictions.
Top 10 Least Liveable Cities for 2023
Even at the bottom of our rankings, cities such as Lagos (Nigeria) and Algiers (Algeria) have gained ground, with some improvements in their healthcare and education systems. Both are in countries that are energy exporters and have to some extent benefited from higher global oil and gas prices. Although corruption continues to be an issue, some additional public funding has been made available for infrastructure and public services, which have also benefited from the decline in covid cases.
However, war-ravaged Damascus (Syria), the lowest-ranked city in our survey, has seen no improvement in its liveability scores despite the regional political comeback of its president, Bashar al-Assad. Contrary to these improvements, the war in Ukraine and the resulting economic and political disruption are affecting liveability in many European cities. Unsurprisingly, this is most noticeable in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, which re-joins the survey this year (we were forced to exclude it following Russia’s invasion in 2022). However, the city’s score has fallen by 5.9 percentage points since 2021 owing to the damage the war has done to its stability, infrastructure and general liveability. It has now become one of the bottom ten cities in our liveability index.
