Dhaka remains 7th least liveable city in the world: EIU

The Bangladeshi capital improved its score on the Global Liveability Index but its position remains unchanged at 166th

Dhaka's position remained unchanged as the world's seventh least liveable city despite an improvement in scores across the board in the Economist Intelligence Unit's rankings for 2023.

The Bangladeshi capital improved its score to 43.8 out of 100, but continued to rank 166th out of 172 cities on the Global Liveability Index for 2022, published on Thursday. Its score in the 2022 ranking was 39.2.

The EIU index takes five major factors into consideration – stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.

The Liveability Index has risen significantly in the 2023 survey, reaching a 15-year high as the world moved on from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the latest report.

Healthcare scores have improved the most, with smaller gains for education, culture and environment, and infrastructure, the EIU said. Only stability has seen a small decline, reflecting increasing perceptions of corruption and civil unrest in many cities amid a cost-of-living crisis, as well as an uptick in crime in some cities.

Vienna topped the rankings once again, owing to a combination of stability, good culture and entertainment, reliable infrastructure, exemplary education and health services.

Copenhagen took second place, while a shift towards normality after the pandemic helped the Australian cities of Melbourne and Sydney to bounce back up the rankings to third and fourth place.

Kyiv was back in the survey, having been forced out by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. However, the city ranked a lowly 165th, with its stability and infrastructure damaged by the war. Moscow, which fell to 96th place in 2022, remained stable this year.

Damascus in war-torn Syria is the worst-ranked city this year as well, ahead of Libya's Tripoli.