Global Livability Index 2019 lists the World’s Most Livable Cities

In the most recent rankings of the world’s most livable cities released by the Economist Intelligence Unit under the Global Livability Index 2019, Vienna, the capital of Austria has topped the list.

What has happened?

• In the latest Global Livability Index, 2019 which lists the World’s Most Livable Cities, the city of Vienna in Austria has been ranked as the world’s most livable city.
• The city of Vienna has been followed by the Australian city of Melbourne and Sydney with the Japanese city of Osaka and the Canadian city of Calgary in the top five.
• The Global Livability Index, 2019 is prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

How is the index prepared?

• The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) brings out an annual Global Liveability Index which is a ranking of 140 cities globally which are ranked for their urban quality of life for their denizens.
• These assessments are mainly based on status of stability, quality of healthcare, scenario of culture and environment, quality of education and level of extant infrastructure in the city.
• The Global Livability Index is prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) by considering more than 30 qualitative and quantitative factors which span over five broad categories.
• These categories are stability (25%), healthcare (20%), culture and environment (25%), infrastructure (20%) and education (10%).
• The In-house analysts of the EIU and local contributors have to focus on a rating of the qualitative factors and then all the scores are compiled on a scale of 1-100.

Inferences from the Global Livability Index 2019

• The Global Livability Index 2019 is dominated by cities in Europe, Australia, Canada and Japan.
• 8 of the 20 cities in the list are from Europe.
• The city of Damascus in Syria is the least livable city in the world.
• The Indian Capital, New Delhi fell in the list due to prevailing environmental issues like poor air quality and inadequacy of water.