World’s Best and Worst Value Cities

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Both axes are percentile ranks within these 350 cities, so the quadrants split the set evenly — raw cost runs from $4 to $56,120/month across the full database, which no linear axis can show. Cost is the nomad cost — the same monthly figure a city page shows by default, for a short-to-medium stay. Quality of life is Nomads.com’s own life_score: 23 weighted parts including human development, air quality, safety, healthcare, education, peace and temperature. About 1% of that score’s weight is cost itself, so the two axes are very slightly related by construction. Of the 350 cities shown, 94 come from the original chart and the rest are the most looked-at on Nomads.com over the last 30 days, so every one is a place people actually research. Middle East is folded into Asia: seven distinct hues cannot be told apart reliably, including by readers with colour blindness.

Original idea and design by Valerii Emelianov, rebuilt here on Nomads.com data.