Hyderabad ranked best city to live in India for fourth year in a row

Bengaluru, which was lowest among Indian cities surveyed last year, has improved its ranking.

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For the fourth continuous year, Hyderabad has been ranked the best city in India, according to Mercer's Quality of Living rankings 2018.

Hyderabad ranks 142 in the list of all the countries in the world, sharing a spot with Pune. While Pune was ranked 151 last year, Hyderabad was ranked 144. Both cities have managed to improve their quality of living.

Other Indian cities on the list are Bengaluru (149), Chennai (151), Mumbai, (154), Kolkata (160) and New Delhi (162). Bengaluru improved its ranking, after it was the lowest amongst the surveyed Indian cities last year at 177.

This was Mercer’s 20th annual Quality of Living survey, and it said that Vienna in Austria topped the list for the 9th year in a row. Other European cities continued to remain on top.

“Despite economic volatility in Europe due to uncertainty around Brexit as well as increased political volatility in the region overall, many of its cities still offer the world’s highest quality of living and continue to remain attractive destinations,” Mercer said while releasing the report.

Vienna is followed by Zurich which came second, followed by Auckland (New Zealand) and Munich (Germany) which shared the 3rd place. Vancouver (5) in Canada is the highest-ranking city in the entire continent of North America.

Cities like Paris in France ranked 39, while London ranked 41. In the United States, New York ranked 45 while Washington DC ranked 48. Cities like Rome ranked 57 on the list while Dubai ranked 74.

At rank number 25, Singapore was the highest ranked city in Asia. Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka which emerged as the top ranker in South Asia with a score of 132 last year, has fallen five places to 137 this year.

Other cities in Asia including Islamabad (195), Lahore (202) and Karachi (205) in Pakistan have maintained the same quality of living.

11 cities from China have made the list, including Shanghai (103) and Beijing (119).

Iraq's capital of Baghdad was the worst city in the list, ranking 231, while Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, made the list at rank 216. Damascus in Syria ranked 225.

African cities from countries like Central African Republic, Sudan, Chad and Nigeria, continued to remain predominantly at the bottom of the list.

The Mercer survey looked at 39 factors to measure quality of living including political and social environment, economic environment, socio-cultural environment, medical and health considerations, education, public services, housing etc.

“With increasing globalisation and changing demographic of the workforce - attracting and retaining the right talent is set to be one of the key challenges for businesses over the next five years. An increasingly diverse workforce is both more mobile and digital with highly diverging requirements and aspirations in terms of career, lifestyle and ultimately where and how they want to work. Companies need to consider these factors,” Ilya Bonic, Senior Partner and President of Mercer’s Career business, said in a statement.

Mercer said that it also provided a separate ranking on City Sanitation in this year's survey, which analysed the waste removal and sewage infrastructure, levels of infectious disease, air pollution, water availability and quality of all the cities. The organisation also said that the data was largely analysed between September and November 2017.