While it was once a source of city pride, the much-hyped most liveable cities global rankings has sent Melburnians on a rollercoaster in recent times. Not even ten years ago, our city dominated the top spot on the list for several back-to-back years. But life (aka the pandemic) threw a spanner in the works, plummeting our ranking, which we've been attempting to claw back ever since.
The list for this year has just been revealed, and thankfully, it's relatively good news! Melbourne has maintained its fourth place ranking on the index – and these days, anything that isn't a step down we will take as a win. After all, fourth in the whole wide world is nothing to sneeze at!
It's the third year in a row that Melbourne has landed in the top five most liveable cities worldwide, after we ranked fourth in 2024 and third in 2023. If you're unsure why this is such a big deal, the prestigious Global Liveability Index has been running for more than two decades. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranks 173 cities across five key metrics: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.
As for the top spots on the 2025 rankings, Copenhagen broke Vienna's three-year reign to take the title of the world’s most liveable city. Zürich claimed third position, and just behind it was Melbourne with an overall score of 97 out of 100. That’s well above this year’s global average liveability score of 76.1. Sydney was not far behind, landing in sixth place in 2025. Both Melbourne and Sydney matched perfect scores for healthcare and education (100 each), also scoring strong marks for stability (95) and infrastructure (96.4). But Melbourne pulled ahead in the culture and environment category, scoring 95.8 to Sydney’s 94.4.
Here are the top 10 most liveable cities in the world
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Vienna, Austria
- Zürich, Switzerland
- Melbourne, Australia
- Geneva, Switzerland
- Sydney, Australia
- Osaka, Japan
- Auckland, New Zealand
- Adelaide, Australia
- Vancouver, Canada
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