Dublin ranks 26th best city in the world for quality of living, in a list of 221 cities worldwide rated in a new survey.
The capital remains in the same place as last year in the rankings, down from 25th place in 2009.
Consultancy group Mercer published its 2011 Quality of Living survey today, ranking the Austrian capital Vienna as the city with the best living standard in the world. Baghdad in Iraq ranks last on the list both for quality of life and for personal safety.
Zurich in Switzerland and Auckland, New Zealand are in second and third place for quality of living. Munich in Germany is in fourth, followed by Düsseldorf and Vancouver sharing fifth place.
Another German city, Frankfurt, ranks seventh for quality of life, followed by Geneva in Switzerland in eighth place. Copenhagen in Denmark and Bern in Switzerland share ninth place.
The survey separately identifies those cities with the highest personal safety ranking based on internal stability, crime levels, law enforcement effectiveness and the host country’s international relations.
Dublin is in 16th position for personal safety, immediately ahead of Amsterdam.
Luxembourg tops the personal safety ranking, followed by Bern, Helsinki and Zurich – all sharing second place. Vienna ranks fifth, while Geneva and Stockholm rank joint sixth.
Baghdad (221) is considered the world’s least safe city, followed by N’Djamena, Chad (220), Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire (219), Bangui, Central African Republic (218), and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (217).
Aberdeen and Glasgow are both at 44 and are the highest UK cities on the personal safety list, Mercer said.
Birmingham (53) and Belfast (63) both rank higher than London (68).
Senior researcher at Mercher Slagin Parakatil said companies needed to keep on top of current developments to ensure that their compensation packages remained competitive and continued to motivate expatriate employees.
“That means reviewing major events, such as social unrest, economic turmoil or natural disasters and their impact on the success of overseas placements.
“The top-ranking cities for personal safety and security are in politically stable countries with good international relations and relatively sustainable economic growth. Most of the low-scoring cities are in countries with, civil unrest, high crime levels and little law enforcement.”