Melbourne, Australia Remains World's Most Livable City

Patrick Clarke
by Patrick Clarke
Last updated: 4:00 AM ET, Tue August 25, 2015

Photo courtesy of Thinkstock

For the fifth consecutive year Melbourne, Australia has earned the Economist Intelligence Unit's title of the world's most livable city.

Melbourne beat out Vienna, Austria; Vancouver, British Columbia; Toronto; Adelaide, Australia and Calgary, Alberta to claim the top spot. Joining Melbourne and Adelaide in the top 10 are Sydney and Perth, Australia.

The EIU states that those cities and others atop the list boast solid infrastructure, quality healthcare systems and low homicide rates, per CNN.

Nonetheless, the EIU's data shows a slight decline in livability overall.

"The EIU ranking, which provides scores for lifestyle challenges in 140 cities worldwide, shows that since 2010 average liveability across the world has fallen by 1 percent, led by a 2.2 percent fall in the score for stability and safety," states the report. "While this may seem marginal, it highlights that 57 of the cities surveyed have seen declines in liveability over the last five years."

Despite the decline in some places, destinations throughout China saw an encouraging rise in livability ranking. Beijing rose five slots to No. 69. Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong ranked 46th and Singapore came in 49th.

The EIU's livability index is based on more than dozen different factors comprising five areas, including stability, education and environment.

Most Livable Cities in 2015:

1. Melbourne, Australia

2. Vienna, Austria

3. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

4. Toronto, Ontario, Canada

T5. Adelaide, Australia

T5. Calgary, Alberta, Canada

7. Sydney, Australia

8. Perth, Australia

9. Auckland, New Zealand

T10. Helsinki, Finland

T10. Zurich, Switzerland

Here's how the bottom of 2015's rankings shook out:

136. Tripoli, Libya

137. Lagos, Nigeria

138. Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

139. Dhaka, Bangladesh

140. Damascus, Syria


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Patrick Clarke

Patrick Clarke

Senior Editor

A Maryland native and wanderer who has lived across the U.S. from North Carolina to SoCal, Patrick Clarke graduated from Towson University with a B.S. in journalism. He previously worked for Bleacher

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