Melbourne still the best city to live in, Mumbai lags

Australian and Canadian cities dominate the index. Mumbai, the lone city listed in the top 140, is unchanged from last year.

Australia’s Melbourne is the best city to live in followed by Austrian capital Vienna, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU’s) Global Liveability Index for 2016.

Melbourne, Australia is the top city to live in, according to The Economist

The annual list surveys 140 cities across the world on 30 factors spread across five categories: stability, infrastructure, education, healthcare and environment. The cities are finally given an overall rating out of 100, which is the ideal figure.

India’s financial capital Mumbai scored between 55-60 and was closer to the bottom position, occupied by Syrian capital Damascus with a score of 30.2. Its position is unchanged from last year.

The top ten cities have an average overall rating of 96.5.

EIU, however, noted that although the top five cities remain unchanged, the past year has seen increasing instability across the world, causing volatility in the scores of many cities.

“The continuing weakening of global stability scores has been made uncomfortably apparent by a number of high-profile incidents that have not shown any signs of slowing in recent years … Terrorism has also been compounded by unrest and, in more extreme cases, civil war in some countries,” EIU, a subsidiary of The Economist Group.

Over the past five years, Iranian capital Tehran saw the most improvement in liveability followed by UAE’s Dubai and Zimbabwe’s Harare.