Sydney and Melbourne listed among world’s healthiest cities

Sydney and Melbourne have been acknowledged as being among the 44 healthiest cities in the world, with the NSW capital listed in second place.

The popular Netherlands city of Amsterdam topped the list within the Healthy Lifestyle Cities Report 2021, which measured the lifestyle of 44 global destinations, while Sydney was ranked the second healthiest city in the world in a survey.

The Report measured the sunshine hours, average hours worked per week, happiness levels and outdoor activities to determine its ranking while also taking into account the cost of a bottle of water (within the city), obesity levels of the country, life expectancy (within the country), pollution index score (city), average annual hours worked, happiness levels (country), outdoor activities (city), number of takeaway restaurants (city) and costs of a monthly gym membership (city).

Amsterdam boasted more than 400 outdoor activities while the Netherlands ranked the fifth happiest country in the world, as well as the sixth best country in Europe for obesity levels at just 20.4%.

Sydney came in at second with its 2636 hours of sunshine per year and 1712 hours worked on average per year – an average of almost 33 hours per week.

With happiness levels of 7.22/10 and 406 outdoor activities, Sydney also has a life expectancy of 82.1.

Austrian capital Vienna came in third, helped by one of the lowest pollution levels of all cities analysed at 17.33 (out of 100).

That is over four times lower than Beijing’s pollution score of 85.43 (out of 100) and three times lower than Barcelona, Paris and London.

Melbourne was the only other Australian city on the list and came in at 11th with 2363 hours of sunshine but only 243 outdoor activities.

The UK study collected data across 10 metrics for 44 cities. Each metric was awarded a weighted score and combined to give each city a total score out of 100. The score was then used to rank the 44 healthiest cities.

Top 10 healthiest cities:

1. Amsterdam, Netherlands
2. Sydney, Australia
3. Vienna, Austria
4. Stockholm, Sweden
5. Copenhagen, Denmark
6. Helsinki, Finland
7. Fukuoka, Japan
8. Berlin, Germany
9. Barcelona, Spain
10. Vancouver, Canada

Image: Participants in Word Yoga Day 2018 in Sydney.