Which is the world's most expensive city Cost of living survey 2012 News theguardian.com

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6/26/14, 11:20 PM Which is the world's most expensive city? Cost of living survey 2012 | News | theguardian.com Page 1 of 6 http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jun/12/city-cost-of-living-2012-tokyo/print Search Worldwide cost of living survey 2012. Click for full-size graphic Sign into the Guardian using your Facebook account Which is the world's most expensive city? Cost of living survey 2012 Tokyo is the world's most expensive city for expatriates according to the latest ranking by Mercer. See which other cities make the list Get the data More data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian

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Transcript of Which is the world's most expensive city Cost of living survey 2012 News theguardian.com

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6/26/14, 11:20 PMWhich is the world's most expensive city? Cost of living survey 2012 | News | theguardian.com

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Worldwide cost of living survey 2012. Click for full-size graphic

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Which is the world's most expensivecity? Cost of living survey 2012Tokyo is the world's most expensive city for expatriates accordingto the latest ranking by Mercer. See which other cities make the list• Get the data• More data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian

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6/26/14, 11:20 PMWhich is the world's most expensive city? Cost of living survey 2012 | News | theguardian.com

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Tokyo is the world's most expensive city for expatriates according to the latest researchby Mercer, knocking Luanda in Angola off the top spot.

Luanda in Angola, Osaka in Japan, Moscow and Geneva are all within the top five mostexpensive cities in the latest Cost of Living Survey. Singapore, Zurich, N'Djamena inChad and Hong Kong also feature highly on the list.

Karachi in Pakistan is ranked as the world's least expensive city and is less than one-third as expensive as Tokyo. "Currency fluctuations, inflation and volatileaccommodation prices" have been stated by Mercer (a global provider of consulting,outsourcing and investment services) as factors of change in rankings after recenteconomic and political events.

London at 25th, is the UK's most expensive city although it has fallen seven places fromlast year. Birmingham (133) has overtaken Aberdeen (144) and Glasgow (161). Belfast(165) remains the UK's least expensive city in the rankings.

Covering 214 cities across five continent, the survey measures the comparative cost ofover 200 items in each location, including housing, transport, food, clothing, householdgoods and entertainment. New York is used as the base city for the index and all citiesare compared against New York. Currency movements are measured against the USdollar. The cost of housing – often the biggest expense for expats - plays an importantpart in determining where cities are ranked.

Nathalie Constantin-Métral, Principal at Mercer commented on the findings:

In North America, most cities have gone up in the ranking, as the US dollarhas strengthened against a large proportion of the world's other currencies.In Asia, more than six in ten cities moved up in the rankings, including allsurveyed cities in Australia, China, Japan and New Zealand. Cities inAustralia and New Zealand witnessed some of the biggest jumps, as theircurrencies strengthened significantly against the US dollar.

Here are some key findings from the survey:

• At 4th place Moscow is the most expensive city in Europe for expats,Geneva and Zurich follow in 5th and 6th place respectively• Many European cities have dropped in the rankings due to a weakening

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local currency - Oslo (18) dropped three places, Paris (37) is down 10 placesand Brussels has fallen nine places.• Tel Aviv, at 31st position remains the most expensive city in the MiddleEast, despite a fall of seven places since 2011• São Paulo (12) and Rio de Janeiro (13) remain the most expensive forexpats across both North and South America. Caracas (29) follows closelybehind with a considerable advance since last year of 22 places

There's some great country comparisons below. We have the list of top 50 mostexpensive cities for expats and the ten least expensive. The downloadable spreadsheetalso features the data behind the graphic and details the same categories for other citieson the list.

What can you do with the data?

Data summaryTop 50 most expensive cities for expats, 2012 (£)Click heading to sort table. Download this data

2012 2011 City Country

1 2 Tokyo Japan

2 1 Luanda Angola

3 6 Osaka Japan

4 4 Moscow Russia

5 5 Geneva Switzerland

6 7 Zurich Switzerland

6 8 Singapore Singapore

8 3 N’Djamena Chad

9 9 Hong Kong Hong Kong

10 11 Nagoya Japan

11 14 Sydney Australia

12 10 São Paulo Brazil

13 12 Rio de Janeiro Brazil

14 16 Bern Switzerland

15 21 Melbourne Australia

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16 21 Shanghai China

17 20 Beijing China

18 15 Oslo Norway

19 30 Perth Australia

20 12 Libreville Gabon

21 17 Copenhagen Denmark

22 19 Seoul South Korea

23 34 Canberra Australia

24 31 Brisbane Australia

25 18 London United Kingdom

26 44 Khartoum Sudan

27 46 Adelaide Australia

28 29 St. Petersburg Russia

29 51 Caracas Venezuela

30 43 Shenzhen China

31 24 Tel Aviv Israel

31 38 Guangzhou China

33 32 New York City NY United States

34 23 Niamey Niger

35 70 Yangon Myanmar

36 61 Kinshasa Dem. Rep. of the Congo

37 27 Paris France

38 25 Milan Italy

39 41 Lagos Nigeria

39 63 Bamako Mali

41 67 Abidjan Côte d'Ivoire

42 34 Rome Italy

43 55 Brazzaville Congo

44 39 Djibouti Djibouti

45 33 Brasilia Brazil

46 39 Stockholm Sweden

47 37 Nouméa New Caledonia

48 36 Vienna Austria

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Download the data

• DATA: download the full spreadsheet

More dataMore data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian

World government data• Search the world's government data with our gateway

Development and aid data

Source: Mercer

49 48 Baku Azerbaijan

50 25 Victoria Seychelles

50 44 Dakar Senegal

Top 10 least expensive cities for expats, 2012 (£)click heading to sort

2012 2011 City Country

Source: Mercer

205 200 Tirana Albania

205 208 Tegucigalpa Honduras

207 200 Skopje Macedonia

208 203 Kolkata India

209 207 Tunis Tunisia

210 212 La Paz Bolivia

211 210 Bishkek Kyrgyzstan

212 213 Managua Nicaragua

213 209 Islamabad Pakistan

214 214 Karachi Pakistan

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