Melbourne has been pipped as the best city in the world to live by Vienna for the second year running.

But the big mover has been Sydney - up from fifth to third.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Global Liveability Report found Vienna in Austria was the most liveable city in the world for the second year in a row.

Rounding out the top five was Osaka in Japan and Calgary in Canada.

Melbourne scored a maximum score of 100 for healthcare, education and infrastucture, 98.6 for culture and environment, but dropped the most points for ‘stability’ - the category that includes crime and threat of terror (95).

Vienna got “near-perfect, exceptional scores in four of the five categories of stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure”, according to the survey.

Australian and New Zealand cities dominate the top 20 - with Auckland (12th), Perth (14th) and Brisbane (18th) the other cities ranked highly.

Sydney almost pipped Melbourne this year.

The Economist says: “This is attributable to an improvement in Sydney’s culture and environment score, reflecting an increased focus on combating and mitigating the impacts of climate change, as outlined by the city’s “Sustainable Sydney 2030” strategy.”

Of other major cities, London and New York ranked 48th and 58th out of the 140 cities in the survey.

The survey assesses which cities around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions.

Every city is assigned a rating of comfort for more than 30 factors across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.

Each factor in a city is rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable.

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The worst five cities named in the survey were Damascus in Syria, Lagos in Nigeria, Dhaka in Bangladesh and Tripoli in Libya.