It is the so-called city of dreams that counts some of the greatest luminaries of music and art among its erstwhile inhabitants.

And it seems Vienna still has plenty to boast about, as it has been named the best place to live in the world – for the third year running.

The Austrian capital, which was home to Mozart, Beethoven and Klimt, among others, and has a population of 1.7million, has the best living standards in the world, according to an annual quality of living survey.

It is the third year in a row that the city has topped the survey.

European cities represent more than half of the top 25 cities in the rankings, which are based on factors such as crime, food and climate.

Zurich was ranked second, followed by Auckland, New Zealand, and Munich and Dusseldorf.

But just one UK city makes it into the top fifty, with London coming in at 38th – one place up from last year and ahead of New York in 47th. Other UK cities, including Birmingham, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Belfast, crept into the top 100.

This year, the survey included for the first time a list of the safest cities.

Luxembourg topped the list, followed by Bern, Switzerland, Helsinki, Finland, and Zurich, Switzerland. London came 68th, joint with New York, highlighting the crime rates in the capital.

At the bottom of the 221-strong list, for the second year in a row, was Baghdad, in Iraq, which had the lowest standard of living and was ranked the least safe city by the Mercer survey.

Other cities with poor living standards include N’Djamena, Chad, at number 220, Abidjan, C?te d’Ivoire, at number 219, and Bangui, Central African Republic at number 218.

Slagin Parakatil, senior researcher at Mercer, said: ‘European cities in general continue to have high standards of living, because they enjoy advanced and modern city infrastructures combined with high-class facilities.’

‘But economic turmoil, high levels of unemployment and lack of confidence in political institutions make their future positions hard to predict.’

(Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)