Hong Kong is the best city in the world to live in, according to the results of a competition launched by the Economist Intelligence Unit and social data hub, BuzzData.

The competition, which allowed entrants to "mash up" data from the Economist Intelligence Unit's Liveability rankings with their own indicators, was won by Filippo Lavato, from Italy, with his spatially-adjusted liveability index.

Hong Kong ranks number one in the winning ranking, a significant increase from EIU’s liveability survey thanks to the addition of a new, “spatial characteristics” category, which includes seven new indicators: green space, sprawl, natural assets, cultural assets, connectivity, isolation, and pollution.

Despite scoring relatively poorly for pollution and cultural assets, Hong Kong benefited from strong scores in natural assets and sprawl.

The Japanese cities of Osaka (3rd) and Tokyo (10th) join Hong Kong in a top ten that is otherwise largely dominated by European cities, with Amsterdam taking second spot. Australia and Canada also featured in the top ten thanks to the presence of Sydney (5th) and Toronto (8th). Other Asian hubs fare less well than Hong Kong with Seoul ranked 20th, Singapore in 22nd and Beijing ranked 30th out of the 70 cities rated. 

At the bottom of the ranking there were fewer surprises, perhaps reflecting that cities that score poorly will do so in all areas, regardless of the methodology applied. Harare, the worst scoring city, receives the lowest possible score for 3 of the 7 additional indicators (isolation, connectivity and cultural assets).

Lavato said: “Hong Kong is a very compact city that has managed to retain its cultural heritage, create a network of green spaces, and enjoy extensive links to the rest of the world. It responded very well to the addition of spatial characteristics to the liveability survey.”

The winner was picked from a shortlist of entrants who had produced a range of high quality visualisations, applications and indices using a variety of different additional sources. Strong themes running through the competition were the consideration of the environment with attempts to measure green space and score on pollution.