Yerevan Ranked 183rd in Quality of Life Among 230 Largest Cities

YEREVAN (ARKA) — Yerevan is ranked 183rd in terms of quality of life among 230 largest cities in the world by the London-based Mercer human-resources consultancy. Its neighbors in the ranking are Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, Lebanese capital city Beirut and Cotonou, the largest city of Benin.

Yerevan has dropped three notches from the previous ranking, but despite this Mercer experts said the quality of life in the Armenian capital city is better than in neighboring Tbilisi (Georgia) and Baku (Azerbaijan), which are ranked 194th and 197th respectively.

The Austrian capital Vienna has the highest quality of life of any city in the world, followed by Zurich in Switzerland and Auckland, New Zealand, according to the survey published Wednesday.

The survey, designed as a tool to help international organizations determine salary levels for expatriate employees, is based on 39 criteria. They include housing, political stability, crime, leisure, air pollution, infrastructure, the health system, education and the economy.

The top slots in the 2015 survey are dominated by cities in Western Europe. The least-fancied city was Baghdad, at 230th, preceded by Bangui (Central African Republic), Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Khartoum (Sudan) and N’Djamena, the capital of Chad.