Copenhagen will become the world's most comfortable city in 2025, displacing Vienna
Kyiv • UNN
Copenhagen has overtaken Vienna as the world's most livable city, receiving perfect scores for stability, infrastructure, and education. Vienna lost its lead due to a decline in its security score.
In 2025, the capital of Denmark - Copenhagen topped the ranking of the best cities to live in according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, displacing the long-term leader Vienna from the first position. The city received perfect scores for stability, infrastructure and education, while Vienna lost its leadership due to a decrease in the security indicator. This is reported by UNN with reference to CNN.
Details
EIU ranked 173 cities around the world based on a number of factors, including health care, education, stability, infrastructure and the environment.
Officially, Vienna is no longer the most comfortable city to live in in the world. After three years at the top of the annual list from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the Austrian capital was overtaken by Copenhagen.
In 2025, the list of the 10 best cities to live in in the world looks like this:
- Copenhagen, Denmark;
- Vienna, Austria;
- Zurich, Switzerland;
- Melbourne, Australia;
- Geneva, Switzerland;
- Sydney, Australia;
- Osaka, Japan;
- Auckland, New Zealand;
- Adelaide, Australia;
- Vancouver, Canada.
Copenhagen received "perfect" scores for stability, education and infrastructure, while Vienna shared second place with Zurich, Switzerland.
Australian Melbourne retained fourth place, while Geneva, Switzerland, was fifth on the list.
Australian Sydney moved up the list, jumping from seventh to sixth place, while the Japanese city of Osaka and Auckland, New Zealand, shared seventh place.
Australian Adelaide was in ninth place, while Vancouver, Canada, was in tenth place.
Why Vienna was unable to top the ranking this year
Although the Austrian city scored high in most categories, its score in the stability category decreased significantly.
Pressure on stability led to Vienna losing its position as the most comfortable city to live in after three years outside the ranking
However, Vienna was not the only city that received lower scores in the category in which it previously had high scores.
Calgary, which ranked fifth in 2024, fell out of the top ten this year, falling to 18th place after receiving a lower health score, along with three other Canadian cities, due to "burden" on the country's health care system.
Who else lost a place in the ranking
Toronto also dropped from 12th to 16th place this year.
This actually only reflects the long queues for medical examinations. There is a shortage of staff in medical facilities and hospitals
He emphasizes that other parts of the world are also experiencing pressure on health care and housing infrastructure, but Canada "stood out" due to the constant impact of these factors.
Just to understand the context, they are still some of the most comfortable cities to live in in the world
Honolulu, Hawaii, was the highest-ranked U.S. city on the list, coming in at 23rd place.
We are seeing a trend where smaller or medium-sized cities in the US are actually performing much better than really big cities like New York or Los Angeles. And this is largely due to the burden on public services infrastructure
Meanwhile, the British cities of London, Manchester and Edinburgh also fell in the ranking, receiving lower scores in the stability category.
This happened after riots in the UK last year over a knife attack in Southport, in the north of England.
In this year's list, London fell from 45th to 54th place, Manchester from 43rd to 52nd, and Edinburgh from 59th to 64th.
As in 2024, stability indicators decreased for Western Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. And also decreased for Asia amid increasing threats of military conflict for the cities of India and Taiwan
While some cities have fallen in the list, others have made significant progress, such as the city of El-Khubar in the Persian Gulf of Saudi Arabia, which rose 13 positions from 148 to 135.
The Kingdom has made significant investments to improve access to health care and education as part of the Vision 2030 program, a large-scale plan to diversify the economy and reduce dependence on oil.
Indonesian Jakarta also moved up the list, rising 10 positions from 142 to 132 thanks to improvements in its stability system.
The rankings at the very bottom of the list have hardly changed in the last year: Damascus (Syria) is still considered the least livable city in the world six months after the fall of former President Bashar Assad. Libyan Tripoli is located slightly above it.
The capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, took third place from the end, while Karachi in Pakistan and Algiers in Algeria took fourth and fifth places among the least livable cities.
