The Tajik capital, Dushanbe, came 215th among 231 cities on Mercer’s ranking.
Well-being indicators in the Tajik capital are the worst among the Central Asian capital cities. Thus, the Kazakh city of Almaty ranks 177th, the Uzbek capital of Tashkent – 203rd, the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek – 206th, and the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat – 211th.
Globally, Vienna tops the ranking for the 10th year running, closely followed by Zurich (2). In joint third place are Auckland, Munich and Vancouver – the highest ranking city in North America for the last 10 years.
The Iraqi capital, Baghdad, is still featuring at the bottom of the quality of living list. Despite this, Baghdad has reportedly witnessed significant improvements related to both safety and health services.
Mercer’s survey notes that Singapore (25) retains its status as the highest ranking city in Asia. It is fallowed followed by the five Japanese cities of Tokyo (49), Kobe (49), Yokohama (55), Osaka (58), and Nagoya (62), and then Hong Kong (71) and Seoul (77).
This year, Mercer provides a separate ranking on personal safety, which analyses cities’ internal stability; crime levels; law enforcement; limitations on personal freedom; relationships with other countries and freedom of the press. Personal safety is the cornerstone of stability in any city, without which business and talent cannot thrive.
The survey, in particular, notes that safety continues to be an issue in the Central Asian cities of Almaty (181), Tashkent (201), Ashgabat (206), Dushanbe (209) and Bishkek (211).
Mercer’s survey is one of the most comprehensive of its type in the world and is conducted annually to enable multinational companies and other organizations to compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments. In addition to valuable data on relative quality of living, Mercer’s survey provides assessment for more than 450 cities throughout the world; this ranking includes 231 of these cities.
