Cairo and Alexandria Ranked Among Africa's Top 10 Cities to Live in

Alexandria and Cairo just made it onto a very fancy list of top 100 African cities, ranked according to a number of quality of life indicators.

In collaboration with business magazine Africa Méditerranée Business (AMB) and Swiss research agency, the École Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (EPFL) published their rankings after collecting a large amount of data in these 7 categories of social welfare: society, housing, spatial planning, infrastructure, environment/ecology, governance, and economy. The first of its kind, the ranking is not just based on the economy of each city or levels of investment - as we have come to expect when such rankings are published, it analyses the living conditions and welfare of the African residents in the cities ranked.

Each city is assessed based on the criteria and given an average score out of 100.

Understandably so, Marrakech took the number one position, looks like King Mohammed VI’s recent development plan to turn it into the “city of permanent renewal” is making headway. Marrakech is followed by South Africa’s bustling metropolis, Johannesburg, due to it spearheading the urban marketing field in the region.

In third place, however, and ranked 3 places above Cairo, is Alexandria, which is understandable, considering that it is much less crowded than Cairo and much less stressful of an environment.

Cairo is ranked 7th on the list, and with all the flack Cairo gets in the media and from its residents, we’re happy it made it on the list at all, here’s to more top 10 positions! So, next time you complain about living in Cairo or Alexandria, just remember that there is always a silver lining and that it’s sometimes better to count your blessings because it could always be worse!