Three of the top 10 most livable cities in the world are Canadian.
Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary are third, fourth and fifth, respectively, on the list compiled annually by the Intelligence Unit of the business and political weekly magazine The Economist. That’s also where they stood last year.
Both Toronto and Vancouver won perfect 100-point scores for stability, healthcare and education. The 100-point score for infrastructure The Economist gave Melbourne and Vienna propelled them to first and second place on the list.
Melbourne has been the top city on the livability list since 2011, when it squeezed out Vancouver. Toronto and Calgary have traditionally been in the top five as well.
The Economist bases its ratings of 140 cities on 30 factors across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.
Seven of the top 10 cities are in Canada and Australia, which the Intelligence Unit points out reflects them being mid-sized cities in wealthier countries with relatively low population density and good healthcare and education.
The other cities on the top 10 list, from fifth through ninth, are Adelaide, Sydney, Helsinki and Perth.
Half of the bottom 10 cities are in Africa: Douala, Cameroon; Tripoli, Libya; Algiers, Algeria; Harare, Zimbabwe and Lagos, Nigeria.
Syria’s capital of Damascus ranks dead last because of the civil war tearing apart the country. Damascus also registered the biggest decline in livability over the last five years, by more than 20 per cent.
The livability list also highlights the cities with the most improved scores over the last five years. Bogota, Colombia, improving the most: by 7.9 per cent since 2008, because of an end to violence created by the drug trade and guerrilla activity.
或許還有不少溫哥華民眾抱怨市內的自行車道、高峰時期的糟糕交通或陰霾的雨季，但這對於其他國家和地區的人來說，並未影響他們對這個城市的喜愛。在最新出爐的「全球最適合人類居住的城市排名」中，溫哥華再次榮登第三名寶座，多倫多和卡加利緊隨其後。
這份針對全球140個城市的文化、教育和基礎建設等30多項標準的評估中，溫哥華名列最適合人類居住的城市第三名，多倫多和卡加利分別獲第四、第五，第二名被維也納奪得，冠軍寶座由澳洲墨爾本蟬聯。前幾年溫哥華一直名列宜居城市排行榜冠軍，直至2011年被墨爾本奪走桂冠。
另外，敘利亞首都大馬士革和巴基斯坦港口城市卡拉奇，因戰亂等原因，在排行榜中並列末尾。
Top 10 most liveable cities 2013:
1. Melbourne, Australia, (97.5)
2. Vienna, Austria, (97.4)
3. Vancouver, Canada, (97.3)
4. Toronto, Canada, (97.2)
5. Calgary, Canada, (96.6)
6. Adelaide, Australia, (96.6)
7. Sydney, Australia, (96.1)
8. Helsinki, Finland, (96.0)
9. Perth, Australia, (95.9)
10. Auckland, New Zealand, (95.7)