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
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
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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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
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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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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