Canberra has been ranked the best city in the world for quality of life for the second year in a row, taking out the top spot in the 2026 Oxford Economics Global Cities Index.
The annual index assesses 1,000 cities around the world across five categories: Economics, Human Capital, Quality of Life, Environment and Governance.
Canberra also climbed seven places in the overall rankings, rising from 52nd in 2025 to 45th this year.
According to Oxford Economics, “The Quality of Life category contains indicators that measure the benefits of living in each city and residents’ wellbeing, covering financial and health outcomes, as well as access to amenities.”
While Canberra ranked first globally for Quality of Life, the capital also ranked 13th for Governance, 89th for Environment, 140th for Human Capital and 211th for Economics.
The report identified Canberra’s strengths as high life expectancy, high educational attainment and higher income equality, while its weaknesses included less economic diversity, a smaller GDP and larger temperature anomalies.
Canberra was one of seven Australian cities to make the global top 100.
Sydney was Australia’s highest-ranked city (13th), followed by Melbourne (16th), Brisbane (36th), Perth (44th), just ahead of Canberra (45th), while Adelaide (70th) and Gold Coast (78th) also made the top 100.
Both Sydney and Melbourne slipped out of the global top 10 after ranking sixth and seventh respectively in 2025, while Canberra was the only Australian city among the seven to improve its overall position.
At the top of the global rankings, New York retained first place, followed by London and Paris.
Seattle came in fourth, followed by San Francisco, Dublin, Boston, San Jose, Tokyo and Zurich to round out the world’s top 10.
Oxford Economics said eight of this year’s top 10 cities also appeared in the top 10 in 2025, reflecting the relative stability of the world’s leading cities.
