Can you name the world's most expensive cities in which to live (2008)?

created by davidr

Enter a city in the box below
Correctly named cities will show up below
Answers do not have to be guessed in order
Source: citymayors.com
Scores measure cost of living in $US relative to city #22, which has a fixed score of 100.
Also try: Monopoly by Boardwalk

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Rank	City	Score
1.		142
2.		127
3.		125
4.		118
5.		118
6.		118
7.		117
8.		116
9.		113
10.		111
11.		110
12.		109
13.		109
14.		105
15.		104

Rank	City	Score
16=		104
16=		104
18.		103
19.		102
20.		102
21.		101
22.		100
23.		99
24.		98
25=		97
25=		97
25=		97
28.		97
29.		96
30.		96

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There are 132 comments for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)

Most Expensive Cities Quiz

by davidr

Created Apr 2, 2009 in Geography
Featured Apr 2, 2009
Game Plays 205,330

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	DCRedskinsRule:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 04:35 GMT		26 points
	Learned a lot from this one! #1 was actually a huge surprise....before this quiz I would've bet anything that #2 would've been #1!

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	Dodge:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 04:44 GMT		9 points
	Great quiz, just tried to think of the nicest looking cities in the world, that worked ok.. 24/30

	Nuclear_Knuckles:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 04:45 GMT		35 points
	springmom, so what's your point?

	bsd987:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 04:46 GMT		16 points
	25/30; lagos surprised me.

	Chris968:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 04:50 GMT		3 points
	Honest question... is #13 a country AND a city? Or is it like New York, New York sort of deal. That confused me.

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	Dodge:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 04:51 GMT		29 points
	Singapore is a city and a sovereign country, yes.

	Chris968:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 04:57 GMT		9 points
	@ Kenneth - Thanks!

	mungar:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 05:03 GMT		48 points
	springmom is drunk

	sammyhain2364:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 05:04 GMT		0 points
	Happy with my 27. Should have came up with #13 and #8 but don't think I would ever have come up with #30. #4 really surprised me being that high

	Nuclear_Knuckles:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 05:05 GMT		45 points
	springmom, your first post doesn't really make sense, which is why I asked. OK, nowhere else is the US is as expensive as NYC...and consequently, none of them are on this list. It seems more meaningful to say Moscow is 42% more expensive than NYC than that it's 5,000% more expensive than Podunk or Nowheresville, since the purpose of the list is comparing the most expensive cities.

	Dodge:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 05:10 GMT		18 points
	Exactly, springmom, you seem to have misinterpreted the meaning of the data.

	schoopdawoop:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 05:17 GMT		2 points
	wow, #1 is a shocker; none are even close, and #30

	clavinfield:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 05:26 GMT		3 points
	27/30: #13 should have been obvious to me; guessed the bigger city near #14, but being a financial centre, I suppose #14 makes more sense to guess; and I also don't think I #30 would have crossed my mind. Haha I guess I am pretty much exactly repeating what sammyhain said, but I, too, was surprised at #4's position!

	debbiedoesnothin:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 05:26 GMT		7 points
	Good quiz. Got 26 - watching House Hunters International really paid off.

	mister_pianoman:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 05:28 GMT		4 points
	anyone else suprised by number 4? I kinda put it in as a joke because I was stumped...but I guess it makes sense, because that country does have high taxes (and free education and healthcare for citizens...)

	Rhys:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 05:29 GMT		3 points
	What? How can Lagos be more expensive than every American city besides New York and more expensive than Melbourne?

	jimpoz:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 05:38 GMT		8 points
	d'oh; i always spell it "sao paolo"

	aerodynamic:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 05:39 GMT		3 points
	I could've sworn that Oslo was the most expensive city to live in, now I just need to remember where I read that...

	aerodynamic:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 05:54 GMT		7 points
	well, I don't think I found the place where I read it originally, but according to the Economical Intelligence Unit found on the source's site (citymayors.com), Oslo is ranked 1st. So I wasn't crazy after all! Anyway, the website has plenty of different sources saying different things, so the order doesn't really matter that much... the top ten would still be the top ten according to a different source, but perhaps in a slightly different order more or less.

	johnlk:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 06:12 GMT		24 points
	No Dubai? I'd have generally thought more places like that would be on there - Riyadh, some of the former Soviet Central Asian cities (Almaty? Tashkent?) Rather surprised at Lagos.

	truth in advertising:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 06:27 GMT		4 points
	Yeah, my memory for quite a while has been that #4 has had the highest cost of living. I remember on a trip I took years ago (pre Euro dollar). I stayed in comparable 2 star pension-type rooms with the bath down the hall and breakfast served in Athens, London and Oslo. At that time, in Athens it cost somewhere around $20, London was $60 and Oslo was over $100 per night. Norway is a beautiful country to visit, but don't try going out for a fancy meal.

	SowCrates:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 06:28 GMT		5 points
	@ John: Dubai has a ton of foreigners. No I don't mean rich fannies having islands shaped like whatever the hell they want. http://www.mapsofworld.com/dubai/dubai-population.html That's the first link I found containing information about the population makeup of Dubai, says that 71% of the population are foreigners, and that the ratio of men:women is 3:1 so you can bet it is mostly because of immigrant labor, primarily from India, Bangladesh, etc

	SowCrates:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 06:34 GMT		4 points
	As for Lagos, if we knew a bit more about Africa city-wise, I'm sure it would have become a no-brainer. Wikipedia has it as the 7th fastest growing city in the world, and if all of Nigeria's larger economic institutions are there, then I guess its not a stretch to imagine the cost of living to be high. Would it be safe to say that more American cities aren't on this list because of our vast commuter culture? Or maybe this brings up an issue from the historic populations quiz from earlier this week: for NYC does only Manhattan count or does the surrounding area? How is the end of the city defined?

	JAJDH:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 07:16 GMT		11 points
	Mungar said everything I needed to say...lol. Sometimes, I'm not sure which I enjoy more: taking the quizzes, or reading the comments. God Bless Sporcle.

	beatrix kiddo:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 08:11 GMT		4 points
	wasn't expecting the top answer to be top ... thought that it would have been cheaper than japan and uk living at least.

	Stanners:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 08:21 GMT		2 points
	No Dubai WTF That Us Hard To Belive

	newenglander:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 11:00 GMT		10 points
	Cant believe Lagos is on there.

	AddiSnow:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 11:16 GMT		7 points
	This quiz is alright but not good enough. Bad source. Reykjavik (Iceland) isn't on any lists there. It should be high up on most of them. Specially when it's compared to the dollar. Iceland is very similar to Norway in cost but since the economic crisis our krona has dropped more compared to dollar/euro/sterling pound than the Norwegian krona.

	BigDave:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 11:27 GMT		6 points
	I'm glad someone mentioned Reykjavik, must have typed that in 4 or 5 times before convincing myself I had forgotten how to spell it. Really more of a list of most expensive cities out of the 143 the source has chosen seemingly at random. Still a fun quiz though.

	el_barto:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 12:18 GMT		3 points
	What exactly do you get for all that money in those cities?

	davidr:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 12:28 GMT		26 points
	OK, so a couple of people have commented on the list. There is a huge flaw in it, I'm afraid, which is that it measures everything in $US, rather than using purchasing power parity of the local currency. As noted in the source, it's possible for prices in a city to fall but the cost of living, as measured in this list, to go up because of exchange rate fluctuations. What this list really measures is not `What is the most expensive city to live in' but `What is the most expensive city for an American to move to.'

	davidr:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 12:38 GMT		6 points
	@BigDave: The source has to be selective in some way. Suppose every little village in Italy has a higher cost of living than NYC — do you list NYC as the 10,000th most expensive?

	davidr:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 12:42 GMT		11 points
	@springmom: But it doesn't matter which city gets used as the basis. If you picked El Cheapo, TX, as the reference point, everything would still be in the same order; it's just that the numbers would be bigger. I guess they picked NYC because, if I told you `Moscow is way more expensive than El Cheapo, TX', your first question would be `OK, but how does that compare to other American cities?' By saying `Moscow is way more expensive than the most expensive city in the US', I've already answered that question.

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	davidr:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 13:12 GMT		4 points
	@sub: It's Sao Paulo — you're not the only person who gets caught out by this!

	jesus:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 13:14 GMT		7 points
	@davidr: Where is El Cheapo? If its as cheap as you say it is then i want to go there for my holiday. Unless its a turd hole.

	squirrelito:	Apr 2nd, 2009 at 13:42 GMT		4 points
	thats a devious one! Great quiz. I've been banging my head against the wall, every time I did it i forgot cities I'd got the last time. Oh, and I'm going to write to the mayor of Sao Paulo and demand he changes it to Sao Paolo! ;-D

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