These are the top 10 most livable cities in the world right now

If you have ever daydreamed about a life with better bike lanes, shorter commutes, and a general sense that everything just works, apparently that place still exists, and it is called Copenhagen.

The Danish capital has topped the Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Liveability Index for a second year running, scoring a perfect 100 in three separate categories. Vienna and Melbourne are trailing close behind, in case you were already mentally packing.

The leaderboard

Here's the complete top ten, according to the EIU's 2026 rankings:

1. Copenhagen, Denmark

2. Vienna, Austria

3. Melbourne, Australia

4. Sydney, Australia

5. Zurich, Switzerland

6. Geneva, Switzerland

7. Osaka, Japan

8. Adelaide, Australia

9. Vancouver, Canada

10. Tokyo, Japan

Vancouver snuck into ninth place, the lone North American city to make the global top ten, while Osaka and Tokyo held their own in Asia, with Tokyo climbing three spots thanks to a livelier culture and environment score.

More from Lifestyle

Over in the US, New York moved up three places to 66th on the back of falling crime rates, though Honolulu is still technically the country's most livable city, sitting at 25th. Meanwhile, the UK is having a small glow-up moment, with Manchester beating out both London and Edinburgh as the country's top-ranked city for the second year straight.

Not everyone's having a good year

Every list like this has its rough patch, and this year it's the Gulf. The Iran war, which kicked off in February and has been reshaping the region since, pulled down stability scores hard enough that the average city across the Middle East and North Africa dropped more than three places, with Muscat and Kuwait City taking the two biggest hits on the entire index.

Asia's glow-up

While the Gulf had a hard year, Asia's been on a bit of an upswing. The region's average score climbed to 73.9, mostly thanks to better healthcare systems, and Chinese cities led that charge, with Fuzhou alone jumping seven spots after years of public health investment finally started paying off. There are now enough Asian cities in the top 20 to sit shoulder to shoulder with Europe. India didn't crack the top or bottom ten this year, staying somewhere comfortably in the middle, which might be the most relatable ranking of all.

Damascus remains at the very bottom for the second year in a row, and Caracas is the only city to have climbed out of the bottom ten this time, on the back of a change in government back in January.

So the takeaway, as always, stays the same. The safe places stay safe, the unstable ones get a little more unstable, and somewhere in Copenhagen someone is probably just getting on their bike, completely unbothered.