It can be a stressful world for living and doing business and so where you live and set up shop can be extremely important. That’s why we’re interested in this study on the best cities to live, work and play.

Trade tensions and populist undercurrents continue to influence the global economic climate. Combined with the spectra of monetary policy tightening and volatility looming over markets, international businesses are under more pressure than ever to get their overseas operations right. Mercer’s 21^st annual Quality of Living survey shows that many cities around the world still offer attractive environments in which to do business, and the best understand that the quality of living is an essential component of a city’s attractiveness for businesses and mobile talent.

Globally, Vienna tops the ranking for the 10^th year running, closely followed by Zurich (2). In joint third place are Auckland, Munich and Vancouver – the highest ranking city in North America for the last 10 years. Singapore (25), Montevideo (78) and Port Louis (83) retain their status as the highest ranking cities in Asia, South America and Africa respectively. Despite still featuring at the bottom of the quality of living list, Baghdad has witnessed significant improvements related to both safety and health services. Caracas, however, saw living standards drop following significant political and economic instability.

Mercer’s authoritative survey is one of the most comprehensive of its type in the world and is conducted annually to enable multinational companies and other organizations to compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments. In addition to valuable data on relative quality of living, Mercer’s survey provides assessment for more than 450 cities throughout the world; this ranking includes 231 of these cities.

In Asia, Singapore (25) has the highest quality of living, followed by the five Japanese cities of Tokyo (49), Kobe (49), Yokohama (55), Osaka (58), and Nagoya (62), and then Hong Kong (71) and Seoul (77), which rose two places this year as political stability returned following the arrest of its president last year. In South East Asia, other notable cities include Kuala Lumpur (85), Bangkok (133), Manila (137), and Jakarta (142); and in mainland China: Shanghai (103), Beijing (120), Guangzhou (122) and Shenzen (132). Of all the cities in East and South East Asia, Singapore (30) ranked the highest in Asia and Phnom Penh (199) the lowest, for personal safety. Safety continues to be an issue in the central Asian cities of Almaty (181), Tashkent (201), Ashgabat (206), Dushanbe (209) and Bishkek (211).

This year, Mercer provides a separate ranking on personal safety, which analyzes cities’ internal stability; crime levels; law enforcement; limitations on personal freedom; relationships with other countries and freedom of the press. Personal safety is the cornerstone of stability in any city, without which business and talent cannot thrive. This year, Western Europe dominates the rankings, with Luxembourg named as the safest city in the world, followed by Helsinki and the Swiss cities of Basel, Bern and Zurich in joint second. According to Mercer’s 2019 personal safety ranking, Damascus ranked bottom in 231^st place and Bangui in the Central African Republic scored second lowest in 230^th place.