Revealed: the world’s most liveable cities in 2026

Asian cities have shot up the latest Global Liveability Index, which has just been released. Where does your city rank?

It started life as a Viking fishing village, has more bikes than people in it – and has once again been crowned the world’s most liveable city. Step forward Copenhagen.

The Danish capital has retained its place atop the annual Global Liveability Index – edging out Vienna (second) and Melbourne (third) – scoring perfect marks for education, infrastructure and stability.

Long considered a world leader for sustainable living, Copenhagen has inspired cities around the world to follow its lead in embracing cycle culture. There’s even a term for it: ‘Copenhagenisation’.

The city’s people-first approach to urban planning helped it to top the annual index, which is compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). It assesses 173 cities across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.

Switzerland is the only other European nation to feature in the top 10 of the latest index, with Zurich ranking fifth and Geneva coming sixth. Japan also has two cities in the top 10, Osaka (seventh) and Tokyo (tenth), while Australia has three: Melbourne (third), Sydney (fourth) and Adelaide (eighth). The highest-placed UK city is Manchester (52nd).

Stagnating liveability scores in Europe and improvements in Asian cities were the main themes of this year’s index.

Asian cities such as Nanjing, China, saw big gains in the latest index. Image: Dendy

“Western Europe is still the strongest region for liveability, but its average score has stagnated in the 2026 index, while Asia’s has risen,” the report’s authors noted. “There are now nine Asian cities in the top 20, and seven European cities.”

There were some glimmers of good news even at the bottom of the index. While the Syrian capital, Damascus, remains the lowest ranked city, authors noted that scores for healthcare have “improved markedly” since Bashar al-Assad’s regime was overthrown.

Tripoli, Libya, also saw improvements in the healthcare category, but remains the second-lowest-ranked city.

Despite being the lowest ranked city, Damascus saw significant health improvements. Image: Mahmoud Sulaiman

Inevitably, the fallout from the Iran war also dragged many cities in the Middle East down the ranking. Nevertheless, the region continued to see improvements in some categories, particularly healthcare.

Health is a dominant theme in the latest index, which recorded significant improvements to the healthcare scores for Chinese cities following years of public investment.

“As a result, Chinese cities dominate the list of biggest upwards movers this year, led by Fuzhou, an industrial city in the south-east,” said the authors. “However, culture and environment scores in most Chinese cities remain low, owing to restrictions on political freedoms, limiting further gains in their rankings.”

Another notable mover in the index is New York, US, which saw one of the biggest score improvements of all 173 cities, following years of falling crime rates and lower risks of terrorist attacks. However, it remains the third-lowest-ranking US city, behind Detroit and Lexington.

1. Copenhagen, Denmark 2. Vienna, Austria 3. Melbourne, Australia 4. Sydney, Australia 5. Zurich, Switzerland 6. Geneva, Switzerland 7. Osaka, Japan 8. Adelaide, Australia 9. Vancouver, Canada 10. Tokyo, Japan

1. Damascus, Syria 2. Tripoli, Libya 3. Dhaka, Bangladesh 4. Karachi, Pakistan 5. Algiers, Algeria 6. Lagos, Nigeria 7. Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea 8. Kyiv, Ukraine 9. Harare, Zimbabwe 10. Tehran, Iran

1. Fuzhou, China (rank: 93) 2. Lisbon, Portugal (54) 3. Wuxi, China (106) 4. Nanjing, China (98) 5. Zhuhai, China (105) 6. Qingdao, China (114) 7. Tokyo, Japan (10) 8. New York, US (66) 9. Shenyang, China (84) 10. Dalian, China (101)

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