Municipalities today

Sofia is among the ten cities in the world that marked the greatest improvement in this year's ranking of the "Economist" magazine for the best places to live. This is reported by "24 Chasa" newspaper, citing "Economist".

Sofia climbed five places from last year's ranking and took 103rd place out of a total of 173 cities, rising by 1.6 points on the index for good quality of life. Five more European capitals saw an improvement in quality of life in the ranking, all from Eastern Europe: Budapest, Belgrade and Athens with 0.9 points, followed by Bratislava and Bucharest with 0.8 points.

The index is determined by 30 indicators divided into five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

According to "Economist", in the cities of Eastern Europe, the improvements relate to investments in transport, the ratio between doctors and patients, as well as the number of students.

Eastern Europe is the fourth best performing region. According to this indicator, Western Europe is the leader, followed by North America and the Asia-Pacific region. It is followed by Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa. It is there that the places with the worst quality of life are concentrated - the Syrian capital Damascus, Tripoli in Libya, Algeria, the Nigerian capital Lagos and Karachi in Pakistan.

Although relatively low in the European rankings, the cities of Eastern Europe are competitive with the best American cities. Budapest, for example, is located between Pittsburgh and Seattle in the world ranking, according to the "Economist" study.

In first place are Vienna, Copenhagen and Zurich, which receive gold, silver and bronze respectively in the global index and repeat their places from last year's ranking. In fourth place is Melbourne, Australia, followed by Calgary in Canada and Geneva in Switzerland. The top ten cities with the best quality of life are completed by Sydney (Australia), Vancouver (Canada), Osaka (Japan), Auckland (New Zealand).