There are plenty of reasons to smile about living in Melbourne right now – from world-class dining to exciting new stage productions. But in news that doesn't make us feel like smiling, apparently Melburnians are much unhappier than they were last year, according to the 2025 Happy City Index. It seems we need to turn our frowns upside down.
Now in its sixth year, the Happy City Index ranks 200 cities around the world using 82 indicators across six categories: governance, environment, economy, mobility, citizen wellbeing and health. These cities are then awarded gold, silver or bronze status based on their overall ranking.
In the last 12 months, Melbourne's happy city ranking has dropped drastically. And unfortunately, it wasn't that high to begin with. In 2024, Melbourne ranked 41st on the Happy City Index. Now, our city has dropped to equal 67th place on the list. Ouch.
The factors Melbourne ranked lowest for were economy and mobility (the efficiency and quality of public transport). But on the positive side, Melbourne still claimed a silver medal, and our city ranked as the third happiest in Australia. We fell behind Adelaide, which placed 29th, and Canberra which placed 51st on the global list. According to the index, Sydney is the 75th happiest city worldwide, and Brisbane is the 78th. So as far as Aussie cities go, Melbourne definitely isn't the saddest place to be.
So which cities across the whole wide world are the happiest? Copenhagen in Denmark was named as the top happy city, followed by Zurich in Switzerland. Singapore was ranked in third place, followed by Aarhus in Denmark and Antwerp in Belgium.
In the grand scheme of things, Melbourne placing in the top 100 happiest cities worldwide is still a reason to smile. Considering our city ranked as the fourth most liveable worldwide in the latest highly-regarded Global Liveability Index, it's still undoubtedly very good place to be.
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