For the third straight year, Toronto has not cracked the top 10 most livable cities in the world, according to the latest Global Livability Index released Tuesday by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Vancouver slid up one spot from 2025 to ninth overall, making it the only Canadian and North American metropolis near the top of the list.
Vancouver leads North America in livability rankings
The index, which ranks 173 cities based on 30 indicators grouped into five categories—stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure—placed Vancouver ninth globally. “Vancouver (Canada), which had led the index for many years, is the only North American city represented,” the survey noted. “All of the top 10 have perfect scores for education, with most also scoring 100 for healthcare provision.”
Danish capital Copenhagen was named the most livable city for the second consecutive year, achieving perfect scores in three categories and above 95 in the other two. Copenhagen was followed by Vienna, Austria; Melbourne, Australia; Sydney, Australia; and Zurich, Switzerland. Other top-10 cities included Geneva, Switzerland; Osaka, Japan; Adelaide, Australia; and Tokyo, Japan.
Toronto's past top-10 performance and current ranking
Toronto has not appeared in the top 10 since 2023, when it was ranked ninth behind seventh-place Calgary. In 2022, the city placed eighth, trailing only Calgary and Vancouver. The city’s highest ranking in the past decade came from 2015 to 2017, when it held fourth place overall. The current index does not specify Toronto’s exact position outside the top 10.
The survey, conducted in May, assigned weights to each category: stability (25%), healthcare (20%), culture and environment (25%), education (10%), and infrastructure (20%). Top cities consistently earned perfect scores for education and near-perfect marks for healthcare.
Bottom-ranked cities reflect conflict and poverty
At the bottom of the index, Syria’s capital, Damascus, ranked last with an overall score of 32 out of 100, as the country continues to recover from civil war. Other low-ranking cities include Kyiv, Ukraine, which has been at war with Russia, and Iran’s capital, Tehran, following military strikes by the United States and Israel earlier this year against its leadership and nuclear infrastructure. “The bottom 10 cities in our index have nearly all been affected by war or poverty, or both, with all scoring particularly poorly for stability,” the report stated.
