Sydney ranked second, Melbourne 11th in world’s healthiest cities

Two Australian cities have made it into the 44 healthiest cities in the world, with one of them coming in second place.

Sydney has been ranked the second healthiest city in the world in a survey that measured the lifestyle of 44 global destinations.

Amsterdam topped the list within the Healthy Lifestyle Cities Report 2021, which measured the sunshine hours, average hours worked per week, happiness levels and outdoor activities to determine its ranking.

It also took into account the cost of a bottle of water (city), obesity levels of the country, life expectancy (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).

A painting of Amsterdam, which was ranked the world’s healthiest city. Picture: Supplied

Picturesque Dutch capital 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 per cent.

Sydney came in at second due to the Harbour City’s 2636 hours of sunshine per year and 1712 hours worked on average per year, which is almost 33 hours per week.

Sydney’s sunshine hours and outdoor activities saw it come second.

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.

A Christmas market in Vienna, Austria. Picture: iStock

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