A bunch of Canadian cities just received the high honour of being named some of the best in the world — but there’s one that outranks all the rest. We can finally lay to rest the Toronto vs. Vancouver debate, because it’s official: Toronto beat out the rest of Canada in the Oxford Economics 2026 Global Cities Index.
Toronto placed 20th out of a whopping 1,000 cities included in the ranking. The list uses five categories to give each city a holistic score, looking at Economics, Human Capital, Quality of Life, Environment and Governance. Toronto ranked in the top 5 per cent in two of those categories, scoring a 79 in Human Capital (number 14 overall) and a 77.7 in Economics (19 overall). The city landed a bit lower in Governance — number 61 at a score of 90 — and in both Quality of Life and Environment, we fared much worse, just missing out of the top quarter with rankings of 259 and 292, respectively. Toronto’s overall score was 84.9.
Regardless, it was enough to push Toronto four spots above Vancouver, which scored 83.3 at number 24.
Following Vancouver, Montreal was the next Canadian city on the list at spot number 62, then Calgary at 69 and Ottawa-Gatineau at 104. Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo ranked 133rd, Halifax at 151 and Quebec City at 161. Winnipeg came in at 168 and Hamilton at 193 — meaning all 10 Canadian cities on the list ranked in the top 25 per cent globally. Not too shabby!
Toronto, meanwhile, is brushing shoulders with the likes of Tokyo (9), Stockholm (15), Copenhagen (18) and Munich (19). The trifecta of New York, London and Paris took spots 1–3, respectively.
It’s a nice return to the top for Toronto after being beat out by the likes of St. Catherines and Niagara-on-the-Lake on a few other recent global rankings. The city was also notably omitted from a ranking of the safest cities in the world to visit, after Canada was named the safest country in the world to visit for 2027.
There’s at least one list we can always guarantee a high score on: Toronto was ranked one of the world’s unfriendliest cities back in October.