Copenhagen has overtaken Vienna to become the world’s most liveable city in the 2025 Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Liveability Index, ending Vienna’s three-year reign at the top. This annual ranking assesses 173 cities worldwide across five categories—stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure—to determine how comfortable and safe they are to live in.
What helped Copenhagen clinch the top spot were perfect scores of 100 in three key categories: stability, education, and infrastructure. Although Vienna maintained strong ratings in healthcare, education, and infrastructure, its overall score slipped due to a significant decline in stability following recent terrorism scares. Vienna now shares second place with Zurich, while Geneva, another Swiss city, ranks fifth.
The top ten liveability list is largely dominated by cities in Western Europe and developed Asia-Pacific countries. Australia’s Melbourne came in fourth, closely followed by Sydney and Adelaide, which also made the top ten. Other top performers hail from Japan, New Zealand, and Canada, showing that these regions continue to offer some of the best quality of life in the world.
Despite the impressive scores of the leading cities, the overall average liveability score across all 173 cities remains steady at 76.1 out of 100. However, the index highlights a worrying decline in stability scores globally. Geopolitical tensions, civil unrest, rising crime, and increasing xenophobia, especially in Western Europe, have undermined a sense of security in many urban centers.
Cities in Tehran, Taiwan, and India also showed reduced stability scores, reflecting growing military and political conflicts in those regions. Although Western Europe remains the highest scoring region overall—outperforming North America in four of the five categories—its stability rating has worsened due to recent terrorist threats, riots, and antisemitic attacks.
North America’s 25 surveyed cities saw a slight decline in their overall liveability, largely due to challenges in healthcare funding in Canada and potential public spending cuts in the United States. The Asia-Pacific region exhibited the widest range of scores. While Melbourne topped the list in the region, Dhaka, Bangladesh, ranked near the bottom due to political upheaval in 2024.
At the lower end of the index, many Middle Eastern and African cities scored poorly, with Damascus, Syria, remaining the least liveable city in the world. Syria’s recent regime change in December 2024, which ended 61 years of Baathist rule, has added to the region’s instability.
The EIU’s 2025 Liveability Index paints a picture of cities where quality of life is still possible but increasingly challenged by global instability. Copenhagen’s rise to number one signals the importance of a strong, stable environment combined with excellent education and infrastructure when it comes to livability.
