Haifa has been ranked 187th on the World Happy City Index, compiled by a British research institute, based on a series of measurable criteria that include income, health, municipal services, governance, and more.
Haifa is the only Israeli representative in the ranking published this week, which includes 251 cities. Researchers at the Institute for Quality of Life are behind the list, and it was presented in the UK Houses of Parliament at a public launch event. The institute wrote that it included in the list only cities for which it has verified information that includes about 64 different parameters.
This is a collective effort by researchers dealing with quality of life, the environment, and planning to rank cities around the world according to a series of criteria. These include various and diverse areas, from life expectancy at birth, to the number of psychiatrists in the city, GDP per capita, crime rate, investment in urban planning and the environment, and more. The ranking does not include a subjective questionnaire regarding the level of happiness of local residents.
Copenhagen ranked first
The top 50 places include cities that are place in the "gold" category. Copenhagen is in first place, followed by Helsinki, Geneva, Uppsala, Tokyo, Trondheim, Bern, Malmö, Munich and Aarhus rounds out the top ten.
Haifa ranks 187th out of 251 cities, below Tashkent and Split, and above Bratislava and Buenos Aires. London ranks 193rd, New York 207th, Bucharest 247th, and Guadalajara, Mexico, rounds out the list, in 250th place. Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, was included in the ranking symbolically, without a score, in 251st place, to indicate the dire situation of its residents under constant Russian bombardment.
The study's authors noted that it only includes cities for which there is comparable information, which may explain why other Israeli cities were not included in the list. 466 researchers from around the world took part in creating the ranking. The study's methodology described that from a list of 3,400 cities around the world, about 1,000 cities were selected for more in-depth analysis, and the final list of 251 cities includes those for which there was comparative information in 64 different categories.
Haifa - the only Israeli city with comprehensive data
The analysis data shows that 25 Israeli cities were initially selected as part of the overall list of 3,400 cities. Of these, 16 cities were selected for "in-depth analysis." Two cities qualified for inclusion in the overall ranking - Haifa and Jerusalem. After an additional evaluation phase, research, regarding the quality of urban information, only Haifa remained on the list.
An analysis of the 64 parameters included in the ranking for Haifa shows that the city stands out favorably compared with the global average in the areas of: "urban innovation", the percentage of residents with an academic degree, the percentage of residents who can communicate in a foreign language, the percentage of elderly people receiving care in their homes, the percentage of those employed in creative fields, the growth in GDP per capita, the low unemployment rate among young people and the number of libraries per ten square kilometers.
Haifa stands out negatively in other parameters, including: the cost of higher education relative to wages, a large number of students per school building, a lack of cultural buildings per 100,000 residents, the rate of tiny particles in the air, a low garbage recycling rate, a lack of businesses per 100,000 residents, a low number of vacation days for new parents, and murder rate per 100,000 residents.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on September 8, 2026.
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