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The 20 cities in the world with the best quality of urban living as an expat

Valencia has emerged as the top city in the world with the best quality of urban living as an expat, according to the annual Expat Insider 2020 report by InterNations. Photo: Victor Fraile/Reuters
Valencia has emerged as the top city in the world with the best quality of urban living as an expat, according to the annual Expat Insider 2020 report by InterNations. Photo: Victor Fraile/Reuters

Valencia has seized the crown as the top city in the world with the best quality of urban living as an expat.

That is according to the annual Expat Insider 2020 report by InterNations, which surveyed more than 15,000 expatriates representing 173 nationalities and living in 181 countries.

An expat is defined as an employee sent abroad on a corporate assignment or classed as a new international hire. Therefore the survey and opinions of the respondents may substantially differ compared with the overall population.

The survey, data which was collected in March, paints a clear snapshot of life just before the COVID-19 crisis turned into a global pandemic.

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“Since then, living conditions have changed rather rapidly in some destinations,” the report said. “As such, the results may not always reflect what expat life in all of these cities will be like in a post-COVID world.”

For a city to be featured in the 2020 ranking, a sample size of at least 50 survey participants per city was required. In 2020, 66 cities met this requirement and Valencia came in first for quality of urban living.

The Spanish city ranked highly in the four subcategories of leisure and climate, transportation, safety and politics and health and environment. The results in the subcategories are based on one to four ranking factors, which expats rated on a scale of one to seven.

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Respondents rated Valencia the best destination in the leisure and climate and the health and environment subcategories, with over nine in ten expats (91%) regarding the availability of healthcare favorably, compared to 74% globally.

European cities predominated the top 10 leaderboard for quality of urban living with Vienna and Nice pulling in second and third place on the back of a strong local public transportation system and local climate and weather, respectively.

Lisbon, Graz, Madrid, Lausanne, Prague made up the rest of the top 10 cities, alongside Asian cities Singapore and Tokyo.

Expats in the Southern European cities Valencia, Madrid, Nice, and Lisbon particularly enjoyed the available leisure options and the great weather according to the rankings, with all four destinations coming in the top 10 of the leisure and climate subcategory.

Meanwhile, Tokyo and Singapore received some of their best results in the safety and politics subcategory.

The countries that made up the rest of the top 20 cities were Zurich, Munich, Basel, Malaga, Helsinki, Dusseldorf, Copenhagen, Luxembourg City, Alicante and Barcelona.

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