Melbourne has been awarded the title of the world’s most liveable city for the seventh year in a row in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s ranking of the most livable cities in the world.

The ranking was calculated by assessing 140 cities around the world, and giving them a score out of 100 based on stability, healthcare, education, infrastructure and culture.

The top 10 cities remained unchanged from last year. Vienna and Vancouver came second and third respectively, followed by Toronto, Adelaide, Calgary, Perth and Auckland. The Finnish capital of Helsinki, and the German city of Hamburg rounded up the top ten.

Melbourne scored 95 for stability, 95.1 for culture and environment, and a perfect 100 for education, healthcare, and infrastructure. The city got an overall rating of 97.5. No city was able to make the top mark of 100, which is labeled as ‘ideal’.

Meanwhile, global business cities including New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo – described by  the Economist Intelligence Unit as being ‘victims of their own success’ – are all named outside the top ten list because of ‘high crime, congestion and public transport problems’.

Several U.S. cities registered declines in their scores which, the report says, ‘stems in part from unrest related to a number of deaths of black people at the hands of police officers’, as well as ‘protests held in response to President Trump’s policies and executive orders’.

Meanwhile, Syria’s war-torn city of Damascus occupied the bottom position as the least liveable city in the world. Lagos in Nigeria, Tripoli in Libya, Dhaka in Bangladesh, and Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea made up the rest of the bottom five.

The report pointed out that the world’s security is volatile due to rise in militancy targeting innocent people. More broadly, global stability continued to weaken due to the increase in terror-related incidents world wide.

“Violent acts of terrorism have been reported in many countries, including Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, France, Pakistan, Sweden, Turkey, the UK and the US. While not a new phenomenon, the frequency and spread of terrorism have increased noticeably and become even more prominent.”