BARCELONA has snuck into the top 50 'most liveable cities' according to this year's global quality of life survey, but Madrid has failed to make it for another year – although only just.
The Spanish capital has moved up a notch from 52 to 51, and although Barcelona has dropped from its 39 last year, it is still comfortably within the list at 42.
Created every year by the HR consultancy company Mercer, the 'quality of life' study preamble says that 'despite political and financial turbulence in Europe', the highest number of 'liveable' cities in the world are found on this continent.
Vienna, Austria is where quality of life is best in the world, for the eighth year running and ahead of Zürich, Switzerland; Auckland, New Zealand; and Munich, Germany in fourth place.
Along with Vancouver in Canada, Auckland is only the second non-European city to make it into the top 10 'most liveable' list.
Germany and Switzerland have the most cities where quality of life is among the 50 best in the world, with Düsseldorf and Frankfurt (Germany) and Geneva and Basel (Switzerland) also appearing in the top 10.
The Danish capital, Copenhagen, completes the 10 'most liveable'.
But unlike Barcelona, none of the other cities in Europe has a beach (see photograph).
London is just two places ahead of Barcelona and Milan, Italy also pips the Catalunya capital at the post, but Barcelona just beats Lisbon, Portugal and is two places ahead of New York, USA.
The Japanese city of Kobe completes the top 50.
Outside of Europe, the top city in Asia is Singapore, at number 25, and in Latin America, the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo is the highest-placed at 79.
The study covered 231 cities on every continent, measuring factors such as infrastructure, electricity, on-tap drinking water, transport facilities such as trains, roads and airports, among other, social and environmental aspects.
Barcelona and Madrid both made it into the top 50 for infrastructure – jointly at number 34 – thanks to their excellent road and rail system and the ease of reaching their international airports, which are the only two hubs in Spain for practically any long-haul destination.
Singapore was best for infrastructure, ahead of Munich and Frankfurt, even though reaching the latter from the airport involves a half-hour train journey making it difficult to explore during a connecting flight overlay.
