Back in January, Time Out Travel released its official list of the best cities in the world for 2024, and our very own Harbour City ranked at number 31. While we’re big believers in the votes cast by our friends at Time Out global HQ, we’re also happy to take the word of Resonance's annual World’s Best Cities report – regarded as “the most comprehensive study of its kind” – as gospel. This one ranked Sydney as the best city in Australia for 2025, and the tenth best city in the world – read on to find out why.
The World’s Best Cities report – released every year by Canadian-based consultancy firm Resonance – identifies and ranks the top ten cities globally based on desirability for locals, visitors and businesspeople. Using a data-based approach, the firm collates and merges rankings from trusted sources (including urban leaders like city mayors, and publications like National Geographic and yours truly, Time Out) to determine the very best cities in the world to live, work and visit.
This year, Sydney ranked in tenth place – beating all other Aussie cities to a spot on the top ten leaderboard. The World’s Best Cities report cites our “luminous Opera House” (recently ranked as one of the most-recognisable landmarks in the world), magnificent Harbour Bridge and “sun-drenched beaches” (specifically Bondi and Balmoral) among the city’s main drawcards, but some other key metrics were used to secure our position. Crucially, our air quality – the seventh-best in the world – was cited as “the perfect backdrop to explore Sydney’s remarkable blend of vintage and modern”. For those of us who wheezed our way through Sydney in the bushfire-ridden summer of 2019, we know that our air quality isn’t something that should be taken for granted.
Other key features responsible for securing Sydney its place as the tenth best city in the world for 2025 include our cultural offering (with the recent expansion and re-naming of the Art Gallery of NSW explicitly mentioned) and our ever-evolving hotel landscape, with Capella and W Sydney given special mention in the report. And in good news for Sydney’s 24-hour economy commissioner (also known as Sydney's Night Mayor) Michael Rodrigues, Sydney’s “24-Hour Economy Strategy” also got a shout-out – with vibrancy reforms including the Special Entertainment Precincts initiative boosting Sydney’s “liveability” score. The recent redevelopment of Sydney’s CBD was also cited, with the researchers describing a “renewed vitality” in the area.
According to the report, Sydney ranked at number 17 in the world for “loveability” and number 12 for prosperity – we think our impossible housing market might have something to do with that last one.
You can read the full report outlining the key draw cards of all of the world’s best cities over here.
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