In 2021<\/a>, Auckland was ranked the world’s most liveable city, while Wellington placed fourth, thanks to New Zealand’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n![\"Wellington](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/wellington-on-one-of-those-rare-good-days-ECBNZ2JBL5DKVNGPWYYUXRYX7E.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Wellington on one of those rare “good days”. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n
At the top of the rankings, Copenhagen retained its title as the world’s most liveable city.<\/p>\n
Across the Tasman, Australian cities continue to dominate the global rankings. <\/p>\n
Melbourne climbed to third place, Sydney ranked fourth, and Adelaide secured eighth, giving Australia three cities in the world’s top 10.<\/p>\n
The annual index assesses 173 cities across five key categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.<\/p>\n
This year’s rankings were heavily influenced by instability across the Middle East following the outbreak of war involving Iran, Israel and the United States in February. <\/p>\n
Iran launched attacks on neighbouring countries and disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, contributing to an average fall of more than three places for cities across the region. <\/p>\n
At the bottom of the rankings, Damascus, Syria, remained the world’s least liveable city. <\/p>\n
Tehran also entered the bottom 10 after recording one of the steepest declines in this year’s index.<\/p>\n
World’s top 10 most liveable cities<\/p>\n
1. Copenhagen, Denmark<\/p>\n
2. Vienna, Austria<\/p>\n
3. Melbourne, Australia<\/p>\n
4. Sydney, Australia<\/p>\n
5. Zurich, Switzerland<\/p>\n
6. Geneva, Switzerland<\/p>\n
7. Osaka, Japan<\/p>\n
8. Adelaide, Australia<\/p>\n
9. Vancouver, Canada<\/p>\n
10. Tokyo, Japan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Auckland has tumbled out of the world’s top 10 most liveable cities, according to the latest Economist Intelligence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,42,43,40,38,41,39,52],"class_list":["post-517096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-auckland","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}