List of most liveable cities puts Baghdad at bottom

The world's largest human resources consulting firm released its yearly ranking of cities for foreign employees on Wednesday.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The world’s largest human resources consulting firm released its yearly ranking of cities for foreign employees on Wednesday.

While Vienna was listed as the most liveable city in the world for the 10th year in a row, Baghdad beat cities such as Khartoum, Damascus, and Port-au-Prince for the least.

“Companies looking to expand overseas have a host of considerations when identifying where best to locate staff and new offices,” a statement accompanying Mercer’s 21st annual Quality of Living survey for 2019 read.

The list 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.”

Iraq’s capital, in 231st place, is apparently not among them, scoring understandably low in multiple factors Mercer uses to make its calculations. These include a city’s available recreation, housing, economic environment, consumer goods availability, public services and transport, political and social environment, natural environment, socio-cultural environment, education, and healthcare.

Baghdad was at the bottom of the ranking, in 231st place. (Photo: Mercer)
Baghdad was at the bottom of the ranking, in 231st place. (Photo: Mercer)

The top 10, in order, were Vienna, Zurich, Vancouver, Munich, Aukland, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Geneva, and Basel.

“European cities continue to have the highest quality of living in the world,” a Mercer press release read, which also highlighted that as many as 13 of the world’s top 20 spots were in Europe.

The highest-ranking Middle Eastern city was Dubai, which placed at number 74. No cities in the Kurdistan Region were listed at all.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany