Table 15. Classification of Cities by Population
Category Number of cities
Less than 600,000 Smallest cities 9
600,000 to 1,000,000 Small cities 17
1 to 5 million Medium-sized cities 98
5 to 10 million Large cities 25
Over 10 million Megacities 34
RANKING OF SMALLEST CITIES
The top 5 ranking of smallest cities—defined for the purposes of this analysis as those with a population of less than 600,000—is led by Bern, which ranks 28th overall. Bern’s performance in the overall ranking is quite similar to that of other comparably-sized cities, which rank between 30th and 40th, with the exception of Wellington, which ranks 70th this year. In second place is Basel, while Reykjavik, Canberra and Wellington—cities that stand out for their strong performance in the environment and social cohesion dimensions—take the remaining top 5 places.
Below we rank the cities included in the CIMI in relation to others in the same population category. To this end, the 183 cities included in the index have been classified by population. The classification takes into account various sources consulted, including The Economist and the United Nations. Table 15 shows the various categories and the number of CIMI cities included in each one.
Top 5 cities with pop. under 600,000
City Regional
rank Overall rank
2019 Overall rank
2020 Overall rank 2021
Bern - Switzerland 1 34 28 28
Basel - Switzerland 2 25 27 29
Reykjavik - Iceland 3 22 24 33
Canberra - Australia 4 48 38 40
Wellington - New Zealand 5 63 48 70
RANKING OF SMALL CITIES
The table below shows the top 5 small cities, defined as those with a population of between 600,000 and 1,000,000.
This ranking is led by Edinburgh, followed by Geneva and Eindhoven, while Nottingham and Quebec City hold the two remaining top 5 places. The first four stand out for their performance in social cohesion and environment.
RANKING OF MEDIUM-SIZED CITIES
Below we present the top 5 medium-sized cities, defined as those with a population of between one and five million.
This ranking is led by Amsterdam, followed by Oslo, Copenhagen, Munich and Zurich, which rank among the top 15 cities overall and stand out in almost all dimensions, occupying very similar positions.
Top 5 cities with pop. 600,000 to 1,000,000
Top 5 cities with pop. 1 to 5 million
City Regional
rank Overall rank
2019 Overall rank
2020 Overall rank 2021
Edinburgh - United Kingdom 1 35 40 35
Geneva - Switzerland 2 49 47 47
Eindhoven - Netherlands 3 50 58 49
Nottingham - United Kingdom 4 75 80 71
Quebec - Canada 5 72 77 77
City Regional
rank Overall rank
2019 Overall rank
2020 Overall rank 2021
Amsterdam - Netherlands 1 6 8 8
Oslo - Norway 2 14 9 9
Copenhagen - Denmark 3 12 13 10
Munich - Germany 4 10 10 11
Zurich - Switzerland 5 19 17 14
RANKING OF LARGE CITIES
Berlin leads the ranking of large cities, defined as those with a population of between five and 10 million. It is followed by Washington, Singapore and Chicago, while Toronto holds the fifth position.
RANKING OF MEGACITIES
The ranking of megacities includes those with a population of over 10 million. This group is led by London, followed by New York, Paris, Tokyo and Seoul, which are among the top 20 in the overall ranking and stand out in most dimensions, with the exception of social cohesion and environment, where New York performs poorly.
Top 5 cities with pop. 5 to 10 million
Top 5 cities with pop. over 10 million
City Regional
rank Overall rank
2019 Overall rank
2020 Overall rank 2021
Berlin - Germany 1 5 5 5
Washington - USA 2 7 7 6
Singapore - Singapore 3 16 11 7
Chicago - USA 4 15 12 13
Toronto - Canada 5 24 22 21
City Regional
rank Overall rank
2019 Overall rank
2020 Overall rank 2021
London - United Kingdom 1 1 2 1
New York - USA 2 2 1 2
Paris - France 3 3 4 3
Tokyo - Japan 4 4 3 4
Seoul - South Korea 5 8 6 12
Figure 6 below shows the distribution of cities according to whether or not they are country capitals (left), the size of their population (center), and their position in the ranking (Q1 to Q4, right). This figure is based on the same classification by rank used in Figure 4 and incorporates the classification of cities by population size defined in this section.
The diagram shows the high proportion of medium- sized cities in the ranking, which are distributed equally between the group of capital and non-capital cities.
As for the performance of the cities, in the Q1 group (those that rank first to 45th overall), there is a high proportion of cities classified as medium-sized, followed by a significant group of those classified as large cities.
Similarly, in the top 45 of the overall ranking, we find a notable proportion of smallest cities, including Reykjavik, Basel and Bern (which rank in the top 5 for this population category).
Figure 6. Type of City by Size and Rank
In this section, we analyze the position of cities with respect to two dimensions simultaneously to see if there is any relationship between them. Cities are also considered according to their population, based on the classification described in the previous section.
It is important to note that in this edition of the index (as mentioned in previous sections) all analyses involving the economy dimension have been disrupted due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Figure 7 shows the dimensions of economy (on the y-axis) and social cohesion (on the x-axis). As one can observe, cities with populations of under 600,000 (smallest cities) perform very well in the social cohesion dimension and
are located on the right side of the chart. In this position, we find cities such as Quebec, Reykjavik and Wellington.
In contrast, those classified as megacities appear on the left side of the chart, which corresponds to poor performance in this dimension. Here we find New York, Detroit, Las Vegas and Hong Kong, among others. The upper part of the chart shows the cities that perform well in the economy dimension, including Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London and Paris. At the other extreme, in the lower area, we find the cities that rank lowest in this dimension, including Guayaquil, Quito, Douala and Accra. Caracas occupies a position at the bottom of both rankings and therefore appears in the lower left corner of the chart.
Figure 7