Wednesday, August 15, 2012 2:41 PM

Auckland has been named one of the top 10 most livable cities in the world, nine spots behind winner Melbourne.

Melbourne edged out Austria's capital Vienna to claim the Global Livability Survey title of the best city in the world to live in for the second year running.

Auckland came in tenth, behind Adelaide, Sydney and Perth while Vancouver, rated third, is one of three Canadian cities listed among the top destinations.

Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) survey editor Jon Copestake says while Melbourne enjoys top bragging rights, there is little separating the top Australian cities.

Four of the five surveyed made it into the top 10 globally and were separated by just 1.6 percentage points. Brisbane was number 20.

"Australian cities continue to thrive in terms of livability - not only do they benefit from the natural advantages of low population density, but they have continued to improve with some high profile infrastructure investments," Copestake said in a statement.

The global livability survey is an annual list compiled by the EIU, initially as a test of whether human resource departments needed to pay a hardship allowance in expatriate relocation packages.

Melbourne's score of 97.5 per cent is close to the perfect score, with the city only losing points for climate, culture and petty crime.

Copestake said the impact of the Arab Spring and the Euro zone crisis were significant factors in the 2012 global rankings.

At the other end of the scale Dhaka in Bangladesh was rated the least liveable city of the 140 considered in the survey.


The world's top 10 most livable cities:  

1. Melbourne, Australia.
2. Vienna, Austria.
3. Vancouver, Canada.
4. Toronto, Canada.
5. Calgary, Canada.
5. (Equal) Adelaide, Australia.
7. Sydney, Australia.
8. Helsinki, Finland.
9. Perth, Australia.
10. Auckland, New Zealand.

Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Livability Survey 2012.The survey measures cities across five categories: stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. It surveyed 140 cities worldwide.
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