Auckland still has world's third best quality of living - survey

Auckland has again come third in a global quality of life survey.

Auckland has taken the title of world's third-best quality of living - for the third time running.

The City of Sails came third in two previous Mercer Quality of Living survey, in 2014, and in 2012.

Mayor Len Brown said the ranking was great news, but Auckland still had a long way to go.

"The major thing we need to address is our transport infrastructure."

The survey ranks cities on factors such as culture and environment, political stability, safety, infrastructure and ease of doing business.

Austrian capital Vienna was the top-ranked city globally, followed by Zurich in Switzerland (2), with German cities Munich (4), Dusseldorf (6) and Frankfurt (7) all highly ranked.

Wellington came a respectable 12th, while our Australian cousins didn't fare so well, with Sydney coming 10th and Melbourne well-behind on 16th.

The survey analysed dozens of living standard factors including crime, health, water sanitation, climate, infrastructure, transport, political stability and ease of communication for 230 cities around the world.

Vancouver (5) in Canada was the top city in North America and good results for Toronto (15) and Ottawa (equal 16) prove Canadians live well despite the cold.

San Francisco (27) scored highest in the US, while London in the UK was ranked 40th.

But Mercer principal Slagin Parakatil said emerging cities like Wroclaw (ranked 100) in Poland, Xian (142) in China and tech-savvy Hyderabad (138) in India were trying to improve.

"These so called second-tier emerging cites are investing, particularly in infrastructure, to improve their quality-of-living standards and ultimately attract more foreign companies," he said.

QUALITY OF LIVING TOP 10
1. Vienna, Austria
2. Zurich, Switzerland
3. Auckland, New Zealand
4. Munich, Germany
5. Vancouver, Canada
6. Dusseldorf, Germany
7. Frankfurt, Germany
8. Geneva, Switzerland
9. Copenhagen, Denmark
10. Sydney, Australia
Source: Mercer 2015 Quality of Living Index

- AAP and NZ Herald