The most livable North American city in the world is in Canada: report

A man walks in Stanley Park as the skyline of Vancouver is reflected in water in Vancouver, Friday, Feb. 5, 2010. (AP / Jae C. Hong)

Vancouver is the ninth most livable city in the world, a new report has found.

The B.C. city has consistently featured among the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) annual list of top livable cities and,in the last two years, has been the only North American city to crack the list’s top 10.

This year, the city climbed by one spot in the rankings, beating out Australia’s Adelaide.

The EIU, a sister organization to the Economist magazine, ranks 173 countries every year on its Global Livability Index. Cities are ranked for their livability across 30 indicators grouped into five categories: health care, education, stability, culture and environment, to show how comfortable cities are to live in.

Vancouver received an overall score of 96 out of 100, with a perfect score in education, followed closely by culture and environment (97) and health care (96). It received a score of 95 for stability and 93 for infrastructure.

The average livability score across all cities is 76.1 out of 100, unchanged from last year, according to the survey.

Despite having only one city ranking in the list’s top 10, North America was ranked as the second-best region in the world to live in, with an overall score of 90, trailing behind western Europe by nearly two points.

North America is the only region to crack a perfect score in the education category.

Globally, Copenhagen, Denmark, remained the world’s most livable city for the second year in a row, followed closely by Vienna, Austria, and Melbourne, Australia.

Cities in the top 10 list belonged to predominantly wealthy countries like Australia, Canada, Japan and Switzerland.

The bottom 10 cities in the index have nearly all been affected by war, poverty or both, with scoring particularly low for stability.

Damascus, Syria, has remained the lowest ranked city. Iranian city Tehran dropped to 164th place, while Kyiv, Ukraine, fell to 166th place.

While western Europe has remained the strongest region for livability, Asia’s score has risen, with about nine Asian cities dominating spots in the top 20 compared to seven European cities.