Vienna ranked as the world's nicest city, Baghdad worst

For the eighth year in a row, Vienna, the Austria's grand capital on the Danube river, has been ranked world's nicest city, offering the highest quality of life, while Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq is considered the world's worst place to live.

The ranking by consulting firm Mercer's surveyed 231 cities to help companies and organisations determine compensation and hardship allowances for international staff. It uses dozens of criteria such as political stability, health care, education, crime, recreation and transport.

Famous cities like London, Paris, Tokyo and New York City did not make the top 30, which were all far behind most German, Scandinavian, New Zealand and Australian cities.

In second place is Zurich, ahead of Auckland and Munich in third and fourth place respectively with Vancouver completing the top five highest rand cities.

Singapore is the highest ranked Asian city at 25 while San Francisco was the highest placed United States city in 29th.

Vienna, a city with 1.8 million people benefit from the city's cafe culture and museums, theatres and operas. Rents and public transport are cheap in the city compared with other western capitals.

Baghdad again ranked as the lowest in the world has faced waves of sectarian violence which have swept through the Iraqi capital since the US-led invasion in 2003.

Syrian city of Damascus was ranked seventh from bottom, with Bangui in the Central African Republic, Yemeni capital Sana'a, Haiti's Port-au-Prince, Sudan's Khartoum and Chad's N'Djamena all completing the lower end of the list.

Top 10 cities for quality of life, 2017.
1 - Vienna, Austria
2 - Zurich, Switzerland
3 - Auckland, New Zealand
4 - Munich, Germany
5 - Vancouver, Canada
6 - Dusseldorf, Germany
7 - Frankfurt, Germany
8 - Geneva, Switzerland
9 - Copenhagen, Denmark
10 - Basel, Switzerland/ Sydney, Australia.

Reuters