People who intend to move overseas usually have traveled in the destination, perhaps even stayed there a while before making a decision to move there permanently. It is extremely important to get a personal feel on the city, its culture and people before making any judgments on its attractiveness as a place to live.
A suburb of Sydney, Australia.

Numerical judgments, such as the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Liveability Ranking, measure a number of factors in the world’s cities and calculate the best cities to live in from those factors. EIU has measured 30 factors, such as stability, infrastructure, education, health care and environment in 140 cities across the world in order to conclude the world’s best city.

Melbourne, Australia is the number one, whereas conflict ridden cities, like Damascus (Syria), Kiev (Ukraine), Tripoli (Libya) have heavily fallen towards the bottom. The best cities to live in top 10 ranking in 2015:
1. Melbourne, Australia
2. Vienna, Austria
3. Vancouver, Canada
4. Toronto, Canada
5. Calgary, Canada
5. Adelaide, Australia
7. Sydney, Australia
8. Perth, Australia
9. Auckland, New Zealand
10. Helsinki, Finland
10. Zürich, Switzerland

Cities in Australia and Canada dominate the top ten ranking. Three European cities – Vienna, Helsinki and Zürich – that are quite different culturally and historically made it to the list.

If you are planning to travel to Helsinki, here is a compact city guide and here are two cultural guides that help you cope with the unique Nordic customs: The Lighter Side of Finland and Analysis of the Finnish Tango.