Every year, the Economist's Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranks the world's most and least liveable cities: this year Luxembourg made the top-20!

According to the EIU, liveability (not so) simply measures the quality of living conditions. Their comprehensive evaluation serves diverse purposes, from setting benchmarks for development levels to determining hardship allowances in expatriate relocation packages. The liveability rating encapsulates the potential lifestyle challenges an individual may face in a specific location, and enables a direct comparison across various regions.

Each city receives a relative comfort rating based on more than 30 distinct qualitative and quantitative factors divided into five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. Each city element is classified as either acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable, or intolerable. Their analysts and local contributors bestow ratings on qualitative factors, while quantitative ratings are derived from the relative performance of several external data points.

A score is then given on a scale of 1 to 100, where 100 indicates an ideal living environment.

Luxembourg enters the top-20

This year, Luxembourg entered the top-20 of the world's most liveable cities. The list is for a second year running topped by Vienna, Austria. The full top 20 looks as follows:

  1. Vienna, Austria
  2. Copenhagen, Denmark
  3. Melbourne, Australia
  4. Sydney, Australia
  5. Vancouver, Canada
  6. Zurich, Switzerland
  7. Calgary, Canada
  8. Geneva, Switzerland
  9. Toronto, Canada
  10. Osaka, Japan
  11. Auckland, New Zealand
  12. Adelaide, Australia
  13. Perth, Australia
  14. Helsinki, Finland
  15. Tokyo, Japan
  16. Brisbane, Australia
  17. Frankfurt, Germany
  18. Berlin, Germany
  19. Luxembourg, Luxembourg
  20. Amsterdam, Netherlands

The bottom-5 cities are Damascus, Tripoli, Algiers, Lagos, and Karachi.