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Lagos, the most populous city in Nigeria, has been ranked the third least liveable city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research and analysis division of the Economist Group. The ranking is part of the EIU's Global Liveability Index 2018.

The yearly survey shows an assessment of 140 cities on over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors, which include stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. Lagos is placed close to the bottom at the 138th position, just above Dhaka (139th) and Damascus (140th).

Lagos was rated 53.5 percent on culture and environment; 46.4 percent on infrastructure; 37.5 percent on healthcare; and 33.3 percent on education.

“The concept of the liveability is simple: it assesses which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions,” the EIU stated in the report. “Assessing liveability has a broad range of uses, from benchmarking perceptions of development levels to assigning a hardship allowance as part of expatriate relocation packages.”

The EIU’s liveability rating quantifies the challenges that might be presented to an individual’s lifestyle in any given location, and allows for direct comparison between locations.

Austria’s capital, Vienna, beat Australia’s Melbourne by 0.7 percentage points to be ranked as the world’s most liveable city. Vienna scored a near-perfect score of 99.1 percent, while Melbourne scored 98.4 percent, and Japan’s Osaka scored 97.7 percent to complete the top three most liveable cities.

Australia and Canada dominated the top ten segment with each having three cities. Australia has Melbourne, Sydney (5th) and Adelaide (10th), while Canada has Calgary (4th), Vancouver (6th) and Toronto (7th).

The report notes that the top 10 cities have relatively low population densities, which foster “a range of recreational activities without leading to high crime levels or overburdened infrastructure.”

The report states that the impact of stability indicators, especially those related to crime, cannot be understated for some of the cities. Violence, whether through crime, civil insurgency, terrorism or war, has played a strong role in the rankings of Middle East, Africa and Asian countries that account for the ten lowest-scoring cities in the survey.

The other seven cities ranked among the least liveable in the world in 2018 are Karachi (137th); Port Moresby (136th); Harare (135th); Tripoli (134th); Douala (133rd); Algiers (132nd); and Dakar (131st).