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What are the best cities to live in the world? Every year, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) sets out to answer that question with its highly anticipated Global Liveability Index, which was just released.

The 2025 edition evaluates 173 cities using 30 indicators across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Each city is then given a score out of 100 points, which assesses how comfortable it is to live there. The 173 cities are then ranked from the best places to live to the least desirable.

The World’s Best City To Live
For the first time since 2022—when I began covering the EIU’s Global Liveability report—Vienna has lost the top spot.

This year, the best city to live in the world is Copenhagen, Denmark. According to the EIU, Copenhagen got perfect scores of 100 in three categories: stability, education and infrastructure. The performance helped it earn a score of 98, edging out Vienna, which scored 97.1 this year. Previously, Copenhagen came in second place in both 2024 and 2023.

What hurt Vienna? According to the EIU, terrorism scares in 2024 and 2025 caused the city to dip in the stability category. These incidents included a bomb threat that canceled Taylor Swift’s summer 2024 concerts and a foiled attack on a train station in early 2025.

This time around, Vienna ties with Zurich for second place. Zurich was third on the list in 2024 and sixth on the list in 2023.

Vienna, Austria is the second best city to live in the world, according to the 2025 Global Liveability Index.
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Western Europe continues to dominate the list with eight cities in the top 20, plus high scores overall. “Western Europe remains the best-performing region for liveability, having achieved the top scores in four of the five categories,” wrote the authors of the report.

The Asia-Pacific region also does well, with nine cities in the top 20 list—though it also has the widest range, with cities high and low on the list. “Its most liveable city, Melbourne (Australia), came fourth in the rankings this year, while its least liveable, Dhaka (Bangladesh), came 171st (down three places following the political upheaval in the country in 2024),” wrote the authors of the report.

At the bottom of the list is Damascus, Syria, which is once again named the least liveable city in the world. “Despite last year’s regime change, Syria’s capital city continues to be scarred by years of civil war and has seen no improvement in liveability,” wrote the authors of the report.

The Best Cities To Live In The U.S.
The U.S. may have been shut out of the global top 20 again, but that doesn’t mean it’s all bad news. Honolulu is the top-ranking city for the second year in a row. The Hawaiian city ranks number 23 in the overall list. In second place is Atlanta (which ranks 29 overall). Rounding out the top five: Pittsburgh (30 overall), Seattle (34 overall) and Washington, D.C. (38 overall).

Honolulu is the best city to live in the U.S. in 2025 (it lands at #23 in the overall global rankings).
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U.S. cities perform well in education, getting the highest scores for any region in the world. But the U.S. is hurt by social unrest and gun violence. “Weak gun-control laws mean that crime is often violent and fatal and undermines social cohesion,” wrote the authors of the report.

There is some good news for the U.S.: 14 U.S. cities have moved up the list, including Miami—which went from 47 last year to 44 in this year’s overall list. The south Florida city ties with Portland, Oregon for sixth place in the list of top U.S. cities.