Vienna (in Austria), Copenhagen (in Denmark), Zurich (in Switzerland), Melbourne (in Australia), Calgary (in Canada), Geneva (in Switzerland), Sydney (in Australia), Vancouver (in Canada), Osaka (in Japan), and Auckland (in New Zealand) are the Top 10 most livable cities in the world, according to this year’s edition of EIU’s Global Liveability Index 2024.
Four Asia-Pacific cities make it
Four Asia-Pacific cities—Melbourne and Sydney; Osaka; and Auckland are among this year’s most livable cities in the world.
The report said that the average index score across 173 cities has increased marginally.
| The most livable cities in Asia | |||
| City | Location | Rank | Index |
| Melbourne | Australia | 4 | 97.0 |
| Sydney | Australia | 7 | 96.6 |
| Osaka | Japan | 9 | 96.0 |
| Auckland | New Zealand | 9 | 96.0 |
| Adelaide | Australia | 11 | 95.9 |
| Tokyo | Japan | 14 | 95.5 |
| Perth | Australia | 15 | 95.2 |
| Brisbane | Australia | 16 | 95.0 |
| Wellington | New Zealand | 20 | 93.7 |
| Singapore | Singapore | 26 | 92.9 |
| Source: EIU. | |||
Gains in healthcare and education in several cities across developing countries in Asia have helped offset declines in scores of several top-tier cities.
The Australasian cities continue to rank within the Top 20 most livable cities. This time, however, we have downgraded the infrastructure scores for Australia, owing to an ongoing housing crisis that has led to an all-time low availability of rental properties in many of the cities.
Hong Kong makes biggest leap in most livable city list
The biggest leap up the ranks globally was made by Hong Kong (from 61st to 50th place), which saw improvements in its score for stability. Although not quite back to its pre-2019 scores, Hong Kong’s political landscape has stabilized, with the risks of disruptions from mass protests now negligible.
The national security law and local regulations introduced earlier in 2024 have restored political stability, but this change in score reflects a huge tradeoff to Hong Kong civil society, as evidenced by the city’s plunging score in our separately published Democracy Index.
Nevertheless, Hong Kong has registered improvement in its healthcare facilities over the years, as has Singapore, which follows it closely on the list of the biggest movers up the ranks. Singapore now scores a perfect 100 in healthcare in line with some of the top cities in our index.
India cities lag behind
The five Indian cities in the index—New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, and Ahmedabad—all score between 60.4 and 58.4 and remain some way from attaining the top tier of liveability.
Cities in two of Asia’s largest economies, China and Japan, have managed to retain their liveability standards. Of the 19 cities that we cover in China, we rate the capital, Beijing, the highest, with a ranking of 81st and a score of 78.8, just outside of the top tier of liveability (score of 80 and above). We consider Chinese cities as having good standards of education and healthcare.
Meanwhile, Osaka (9th) and Tokyo (14th) have maintained their positions on the index. As the most populous among the top 20 cities, Tokyo deserves the additional credit of being able to maintain high standards of public service provision and security across an enormous population. Barsali Bhattacharyya, deputy industry director at EIU, said: “Asia continues to become more livable on the back of marked improvements in healthcare and education facilities. Even so, the region’s cities present a mixed picture.
Asian cities overview
Of the 58 Asian cities in the index, 16 have attained the highest level of liveability (score above 80).
However, 11 Asian cities received scores below 60, at which point we define liveability as becoming seriously constrained, as these cities struggle with structural, political and climatic problems that are hard to overcome.”
Metro Manila saw its ranking go down by four notches in 2023’s global ranking. Manila placed 136th among 173 cities, as it got a score of 60.9 out of 100.
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