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Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat
World
London - Asharq Al-Awsat

Vienna is World's Most Livable City, Damascus at Bottom of the Table

A public garden in Vienna. Reuters file photo

Vienna has dislodged Melbourne for the first time at the top of the Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Livability Index after a stiff competition.

Melbourne had been clinching the title for the past seven editions. But the Austrian capital beat the Australian city due to a range of factors such as its living standard and low crime rate.

It is the first time a European metropolis has topped the annual chart.

Manchester’s resilience in its recovery from a terror attack in 2017 and improved security helped it rise to 35th in 2018, 13 places higher than London.

The survey was criticized last year for demoting Manchester after the Manchester Arena attack which killed 22 people.

This year, survey editor Roxana Slavcheva said Manchester had "shown resilience in the city's recovery from a recent, high-profile terrorist attack, which previously shook up stability,” according to the BBC.

At the other end of the scale, war-torn Damascus in Syria was ranked the least livable city, closely followed by Dhaka in Bangladesh and Lagos in Nigeria.

The Libyan capital Tripoli came in seventh place in the list of ten least livable cities, while Algiers in Algeria was ranked ninth followed by Dakar in Senegal.

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