Top 3 Best Places to Live in the World

I took a break for a little while and I believe we left off discussing Germany as the 4th Best Place to Live in the World followed closely by New Zealand, Luxembourg and the United States in the International Living Quality of Living Index for 2010.

Now on to the Top 3 Best Places to Live!

In position three is Switzerland. The Swiss are known for many things including perfect clocks and watches and one of my favorite Swiss things - Swiss Cheese!

Switzerland is an award winnning, super efficient, high tech country that still manages to take time out to play. Think hiking, mountain climbing, Alpine skiing and if nothing else just laying back in awe of the beautiful scenery including what many consider to be some of the most beautiful people in the world.

Switzerland much like Canada, except maybe even more so, is known as a muli-cultural, international  - global village. Rather than having just one spoken language in Switzerland you will find five different ones including English, German, French and Italian. The Swiss chose to be multi-lingual so foreigners can feel at home. That also makes it atractive for foreigners to call Switzerland home!

Also known as a peace loving neutral country that is home to Geneva, the United Nations and the Red Cross why wouldn't one be drawn to live in Switzerland!

Cleanest Places in the World

I've been blogging about International Living's Quality of Life Index which highlights the Best Places to Live in the world. This years guide is a terrific read with lots of little interesting tid-bits of informaiton. This week I'm going to share in more detail some specifics about each country which made the Top 10 list of the Best Places to Live. Today I thought I would just share a little of my leisurly Sunday morning read. This headline caught my eye -

The World's Cleanest Countries

Hum, now reading all about the best countries for living it certainly fits to get one thinking about cleanliness. Afterall, I think most of us would agree cleanliness is a pretty important factor when it comes to Quality of Life - at least I would hope so!

Much to my surprise some of the cleanest countries in the world are in Latin America. Yup, Costa Rica ranked 5th cleanest and Columbia go the #7 spot. So, where does the good ole' U.S.A. end up - sorry to say the U.S. is 39th on the list. Pretty sad comment really and I'm sure by now you are thinking, enough already who got spot #1? And the award for the cleanest country in the world goes to...

It's probably no big surprsie that Switzerland is the cleanest country in the world.

Looking for the Best wages in the World? Try Switzerland

It pays to work in Switzerland: employees in Zurich and Geneva have the highest net wages in the world, a study by banking group UBS shows, while those in India's Mumbai take home the lowest but enjoy one of the Cheapest Places to Live.

The Swiss cities were also ranked among the top five most expensive in the world in the bank's 2009 "Price and Earnings" international study.

"With its extremely high gross wages and comparatively low tax rates, Switzerland is a very employee-friendly country," the Swiss bank said in a statement.

"No other cities allows workers to take home more income at the end of the month than Zurich and Geneva."

The study, published every three years, compares the income and purchasing power of employees in 73 cities across the globe, highlighting wide discrepancies in wages between different regions, and even within the same country.

The biggest gaps were found in Asia, the study said, with Tokyo ranking as one of the world's five costliest cities while the capitals of developing countries such as Malaysia, the Philippines and India were all at the bottom of the price range.

Oslo was this year's most expensive city, based on a standardized basket of 122 goods and services, followed by Zurich, Copenhagen, Geneva, Tokyo and New York.

When rents are factored in, however, New York rises to the top spot, the study said.

This year, the bank said currency fluctuations caused by the global economic crisis affected the rankings of several cities, most notably London, which was the second most expensive city in 2006, but which fell nearly 20 places following the pound's drop earlier this year.

The analysis involved more than 30,000 data points, collected by several independent observers in each city, in March and April, the bank said. All amounts were converted into a single currency before being compared.

The world's cheapest places to live were Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur, Manila in the Philippines, and India's Delhi and Mumbai. But the average employee in many of these cities, as well as Jakarta and Nairobi, gets paid some of the world's lowest salaries which have between 11 percent and 15 percent of the purchasing power of a salary in Zurich.

"An average wage-earner in Zurich and New York can buy an iPod nano from an Apple store after nine hours of work. At the other end of the spectrum, workers in Mumbai need to work 20 nine-hour days, roughly the equivalent of one month's salary," the study said.

Working hours also varied in the cities surveyed, with the study finding that on average, people in Asian and Middle Eastern cities work much more than the global average of 1,902 hours per year. Overall, the most hours are worked in Cairo, followed by Seoul, while the least hours worked were in Lyon and Paris.