Lisbon this year ranks higher on Mercer’s list than cities including New York (USA, 44th) and Edinburgh (Scotland, 45th).
Vienna occupies first place for overall quality of living for the 8th year running, with the rest of the top-ten list mostly filled by European cities such as Zurich, Munich, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Geneva, Copenhagen and Basel.
The only non-European cities in the top ten are Auckland and Vancouver.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, at the very bottom of the list is Baghdad, Iraq.
While Lisbon may have dropped one spot in comparison to last year “most European cities remained stable on the ranking”, with the exception of Brussels (Belgium), which dropped six places to 27th due to safety problems caused by terrorist attacks, and Rome (Italy), which fell four places to 57th due to rubbish removal problems.
Cities recording some of the biggest drops on the list included Istanbul (Turkey), which fell from 122nd to 133rd “due to serious political instability last year.”
Compiled annually and for the 19th time this year, Mercer’s Quality of Living Index “assesses quality of living conditions to help multinational companies and other employers fairly compensate employees when placing them on international assignments.”
This year the survey also assessed each city’s infrastructures, such as energy and water supplied, telecommunications, public transport and international flights to local airports, explaining: “City Infrastructure plays an important role when multinationals decide where to establish locations and was ranked separately this year.”
Singapore tops the list for city infrastructure while Port-au-Prince, in Haiti, which was razed by a massive earthquake in 2010, came in last.
Lisbon, on this list, was ranked in 60th position.