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About the Global Liveability Index

A Global Liveability Index is an annual survey from The Economist's sister company, Economist's Intelligence Unit (EIU). Every year, it assesses the biggest cities in the world, on five key factors: Stability, Healthcare, Culture and environment, Education, and Infrastructure. Each country is assigned a score from 0 to 100 in each category to get the overall score of liveability, which indicates how comfortable it is to live in a certain city. In 2025, the survey assessed 173 cities, which got an average score of 76,1.

How Copenhagen became the most liveable city in the world

In EIU’s Liveability Index for 2025, Copenhagen has overtaken Vienna to become the most liveable city in the world. The Austrian city outscored its Danish counterpart on healthcare, but Copenhagen scored a perfect 100 for stability, education, and infrastructure, taking it to first place worldwide.

Western Europe remains the best-performing region for liveability, having achieved the top scores in four of the five categories and outpaced only by North America for education. However, the region’s score for stability has fallen since 2024, amid more frequent terrorism threats and riots. Nevertheless, the absence of terrorist threats in Copenhagen and the overall safety of the city greatly influenced this year's ranking.

What other cities are some of the most liveable in the world?

Vienna, which fell to second place, saw a sharp decline in its stability score, but attained perfect scores for healthcare, education, and infrastructure. It was joined in second place by Zurich (Switzerland), while Geneva (also Switzerland) came in fifth. Between them, in fourth place, was Melbourne, with two other Australian cities, Sydney and Adelaide, also making the top ten. As in previous surveys, the rest of the leading cities were spread across Japan (Osaka), New Zealand (Auckland), and Canada (Vancouver).

Copenhagen Capacity's contribution

We at Copenhagen Capacity are extremely proud to attract international companies, investors, and specialists, now, to the most liveable city in the world. We will continue to do so and contribute to the further development of Copenhagen, to stay in the first place for future rankings. 

Find the article from The Economist and the full report here.