In Oxford Economics’ 2025 Global Cities Index, Metro Manila placed 206th best city to live in among 1,000 cities around the world, climbing up 50 spots from last year’s 256th place. The ranking is based on economics, human capital, quality of life, environment, and governance, each of which has its own ranking. Manila ranked 158th for economics, 93rd for human capital, 373rd for quality of life, 30th for environment, and 604th for governance.
The governance ranking is based on factors such as institutions, political stability, business environment, and civil liberties.
Manila is categorized as a regional leader, one of the eight city archetypes. Oxford Economics defines regional leaders as important and large cities that “outperform their respective countries on metrics such as economic growth and income per person,” and which have more universities and business activity than neighboring cities. Other notable cities under this archetype include Berlin, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Bangkok, and Rome.
However, the country’s capital is also a developing megacity, defined as a large urban area with more than 10 million residents in the developing world. In this city archetype, “infrastructure investments have often struggled to keep up with the increasing population and they have low levels of income per person,” according to Oxford Economics. A few other developing megacities are Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, Lima, Rio de Janeiro, and Wuhan.
Other Philippine Cities in the global ranking are Cebu City at 470 overall, Angeles at 488, Bacolod at 518, Davao City at 519, Cagayan de Oro City at 577, Dagupan at 581, General Santos at 835, and Zamboanga City at 861.
Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, Davao, and General Santos have also been categorized as emerging standouts, or cities in the developing world that “attract residents due to their fast productivity growth and higher levels of income per person than their country as a whole.
The index’s top five, ranked by order, are New York, London, Paris, San Jose in California, and Seattle.
