These Are The 10 Least Livable Cities In The World

While some cities are celebrated for their high quality of life, others are plagued by deep-rooted challenges that make daily life difficult and dangerous in many cases.

From ongoing wars and political instability to inadequate infrastructure, this map, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, shows the 10 least livable cities in the world, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index 2025.

The index ranks cities on over 30 factors across five categories to determine their overall livability. Factors include:

• Stability: Prevalence of crime, terror, military conflict, civil unrest/conflict

• Healthcare: Availability and quality of private and public healthcare, general healthcare indicators

• Culture and environment: Humidity/temperature rating, cultural and sporting availability, social or religious restrictions

• Education: Availability and quality of private education, public education indicators

• Infrastructure: Quality of road network, public transport, international links, availability of good housing

What is the Least Livable City in the World?

Below, we show the 10 least livable cities in the world according to The Economist, and their livability scores.

Damascus, the capital of Syria, remains the world’s least livable city in 2025.

Despite a dramatic regime change in Syria in late 2024, the effects of over a decade of civil war have left the capital with shattered infrastructure, limited access to health care and low levels of public safety.

The overall score for Damascus is nearly 10 points lower than that of the next-worst city, Tripoli, Libya.

Tripoli, Libya’s capital, continues to struggle with political instability, factional fighting, and collapsed public services. Like Damascus, it showed no improvement over previous years.

Kyiv continues to rank near the bottom amid Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia, which has severely impacted its infrastructure and safety.

Overall, the bottom of The Economist’s livability rankings is largely filled by cities from the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.

The average score for livability in 2025 was 76.1 out of 100, the same as 2024. However, scores in the stability category have continue to decline amid widespread geopolitical tension and civil unrest around the world.

To see which cities ranked as the most livable cities of 2025, check out this graphic on Voronoi.