The City with the Highest Quality of Living is...Vienna, Austria

Mercer recently released its annual Worldwide Quality of Living survey results and Vienna topped the list, ahead of Zurich, last year's top city. Mercer is an international HR firm that produces reports for companies with employees on international assignments. The top 10 are:

1 Vienna
2 Zurich
3 Geneva
4 Vancouver (tied)
4 Auckland (tied)
6 Dusseldorf
7 Munich
8 Frankfurt
9 Bern
10 Sydney

Since bidding season has begun, this is another interesting fact to consider, as well as the Cost of Living report I posted last month.

Singapore tops the Asian cities, although it was only the 10th most expensive Asian city in the Cost of Living report.

In Central and South America, San Juan, Puerto Rico tops the list with Montevideo as runner up. At the bottom of the list in the region is Port au Prince. Santiago has the best infrastructure in the region, and the report emphasizes how much infrastructure affects the quality of living in a city:

“Infrastructure has a significant effect on the quality of living experienced by expatriates. Whilst often taken for granted when functioning to a high standard, a city’s infrastructure can generate severe hardship when it is lacking.”

The top 10 cities for infrastructure are:

1 Singapore
2 Munich
3 Copenhagen
4 Tsukuba
5 Yokohama
6 Dusseldorf (tied)
6 Vancouver (tied)
8 Frankfurt (tied)
8 Hong Kong (tied)
8 London (tied)

The top two cities in the U.S. on the infrastructure list were Atlanta at number 15 and then Washington D.C. and number 24. The top U.S. cities for quality of living were: Honolulu (29), San Francisco (30) and Boston (35).

Update: Also read the post on ECA International's Most Expensive Places in World for Expats report and The Economist's 2010 World's Most Livable Cities.

Photo of Vienna from www.foto-julius.at