Budapest is among the top five fastest-improving cities in the world when it come to livability, according to global rankings compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
The EIU is one of the world’s largest analytical and forecasting agencies and has assessed the quality of life in 173 cities across stability, healthcare, education, culture and environment, and infrastructure.
In its Global Liveability Index 2024, the firm assigns numerical ratings to these and sums them up with different weightings in an overall quality index ranging from zero to 100.
Vienna continues to offer the best quality of life among the world’s major cities with the Austrian capital scoring 98.4 out of 100 and topping the ranking for the third consecutive year.
Other cities in the top 10 include Copenhagen, Zurich, Melbourne, Calgary, Geneva, Sydney, Vancouver, Osaka, and Auckland.
According to the EIU survey, Western Europe as a whole is also the most livable region in the world. The average score of the 30 major cities in Western Europe in this year’s quality of life ranking is 92, although this is 0.3 percentage points lower than last year, mainly due to a weakening of the stability criterion. The company attributes this to crime and protests in several major Western European cities, which have often caused serious upheaval.
Budapest is among the cities whose rankings have improved the most in the last 12 months.
The Hungarian capital has scored 92.0 out of 100 points, moving up seven places to 32nd place.
The 25 North American cities surveyed scored an average of 90.5, 0.1 percentage points lower than last year. This geographic region was ranked second best in this year’s EIU livability ranking.
Tel Aviv has fallen the most with 70.7 points, down 20 places from last year to 112th in this year’s ranking. According to the EIU, this drop was due to the terrorist attack by the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, last October and the subsequent war between Israel and Hamas that has been dragging on ever since.
At the bottom of the EIU’s livability ranking this year, at 173rd place, is Damascus, with an overall quality of life index of just 30.7 points.
In addition to the Syrian capital, Tripoli in Libya, Algiers, Lagos, Karachi, Dhaka, Harare, Port Moresby, Kyiv, and Caracas are in the bottom 10 with the worst quality of life.
