Vancouver is tops in Canada for quality of life with its moderate climate contributing to its high ranking, says an annual survey.

The West Coast city has also retained its fifth-place spot globally in the 2012 Mercer Quality of Living survey.

Overall, Vienna retains the top spot as the city with the world's best quality of living, also keeping its first place ranking, said the survey released on Tuesday. Baghdad was last out 221 cities.

The survey said Canada offers some of the best quality of living in the world with Ottawa ranking 14th, Toronto 15th, Montreal 23rd and Calgary 32nd.

"One of the things that Vancouver has going for it that the other cities do not have is climate," said Mercer Canada's Eleana Rodriguez.

"All four of the other Canadian cities that are on the ranking don't have the kind of climate that Vancouver has, so obviously that's a factor to consider."

Canada has five cities ranked in the top 35 cities in the world, she said, adding that Calgary advanced one ranking and Montreal dropped by one ranking.

"We score quite high," said Rodriguez, market business leader for Mercer Canada in Toronto.

Consulting firm Mercer looked at 39 factors such as a city's political and social environment and its economic and socio-cultural environment, areas in which Canada scored quite well.

The firm also looked at medical and health access, education and access to schools, public transportation, recreation, availability of housing and consumer goods, as well as climate.

"Vienna scores high on a number of those areas," Rodriguez said.

The survey also found that Zurich and Auckland of New Zealand were ranked second and third with Munich taking fourth spot.

The annual survey helps multinational companies and organizations compensate employees when they're placed on international assignments.

In the United States, the top three cities were Honolulu, ranked 28th with the highest quality of living, followed by San Francisco in 29th place and Boston at 35th.

Globally, the cities with the lowest quality of living are: Khartoum, Sudan; N'Djamena, Chad; Port-au Prince, Haiti; and Bangui in the Central African Republic.

(Read by Brian Salter. Brian Salter is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)