September 2, 2024, 3:59 pm | Read time: 5 minutes
Have you ever wondered why you should go on vacation in a city of all places and thought that it couldn’t be healthy? This is not without reason, between exhaust fumes and the hustle and bustle of the big city, fast food chains, and nightclubs. However, the following cities might be of interest to you because these are considered to be the healthiest in the world.
It’s certainly not Beijing. On the contrary, the capital of China is even considered the unhealthiest city in the world. And it wasn’t the WHO or Greenpeace that found this, but the Chinese themselves. The state-run “Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention” found that the inhabitants of Beijing suffer worse from environmental diseases than people in other cities around the world.
Environmental pollution, food contamination, and substandard medicines mean that the inhabitants of the Chinese metropolis have to deal with physical ailments for longer and longer towards the end of their lives. These are just some of the aspects that make a city healthy or unhealthy. Other factors include life expectancy, the healthcare system, and nutrition.
These and other criteria help determine the healthiest cities, which newspapers like The Guardian and The Economist do regularly. Some of the world’s cities are always among them, as the BBC has observed. TRAVELBOOK presents these “healthy cities” here.
Singapore
Singapore is known as the city of bans and high penalties for the most minor offenses. Chewing gum was forbidden for a long time. However, today, pharmacists dispense the substance that can make park benches and railings so unpleasantly sticky, at least in exceptional cases. Anyone who spits on the street or fails to flush in public toilets must pay a fine. The same applies to anyone caught eating, drinking, or smoking on public transport or platforms, namely 300 to 3,000 euros.
You may think what you like about these rules. The fact is that when it comes to cleanliness, Singapore stands out. One might wonder if this has contributed to the metropolis in Southeast Asia being one of the healthiest cities in the world. After all, life expectancy here is very high at 84 years, and infant mortality is extremely low. Hygiene is certainly one aspect.
In addition, Singapore boasts one of the most efficient healthcare systems in the world, a transport system that reduces car traffic and promotes cycling paths, as well as numerous parks where one can regularly take a deep breath – albeit often in the shadow of various prohibition signs.
Tokyo
Crowds of people stream across streets, filling subways and skyscrapers. When you think of Tokyo, you always picture large crowds in very small spaces. Can that be healthy? At least it is not an obstacle to getting a top spot on the list of the world’s healthiest cities. One of the reasons for this is Tokyo’s excellent passenger transportation system. This ensures comparatively low carbon dioxide emissions. 4.89 tons are measured here per capita per year – in Beijing, it is 10.8, and in Singapore, 7.86.
In addition – as in the case of Singapore – there is an extraordinary penchant for hygiene. Anyone who has ever been to Tokyo knows that going to the toilet is often an experience. It is not uncommon to be blasted with loud music and enjoy sophisticated, high-tech hygiene. Other factors that should not be neglected, even if, like cleanliness, they apply to the whole of Japan, are a healthy diet based on rice and vegetables, strong social and family ties that provide psychological stability, and an exemplary healthcare system. This probably explains why the average Tokyo resident lives to be just over 84 years old.
Perth
If the “soul of the city” is a 400-hectare park, the sun shines between ten and 14 hours a day, and beautiful beaches are not far away – then one can imagine that the inhabitants of this city must be doing quite well. In Perth, Australia’s fourth largest metropolis, where all this is true, the population is also very healthy. As in the cities mentioned above, this is, of course, also due to an excellent healthcare system.
Perth also attaches great importance to cycle paths. Between 1998 and 2009, the number of cyclists in the city increased by 450 percent. Cycling is an excellent way to get to Kings Park, the aforementioned “soul of the city,” founded in 1872 and larger than Central Park in New York with its 400 hectares – much of it is original Australian bushland, by the way. For TripAdvisor users, it ranks as one of the ten most beautiful parks in the world (6th place).
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Copenhagen
It is safe to assume that there is a connection between being happy and being healthy. So it’s no surprise that Copenhagen is one of the healthiest cities in the world, as the Danes are considered to be the happiest and most content people in Europe. A fact that has recently been traced back to genes: Researchers at the University of Warwick in the UK found the lowest proportion of mutations in the happiness hormone serotonin in the Danes – and believed they had thus discovered the source of happiness, albeit with reservations for the time being.
Of course, other, somewhat easier-to-identify criteria make Copenhagen healthy. For example, the Danish capital has reduced CO2 emissions by 20 percent since 2005—almost half of Copenhageners cycle to work or school. And with the road on the Dronning Louises Bridge, Copenhagen even boasts the busiest cycling route in the world. And cycling not only makes you happy, it is also known to keep you fit and healthy.