If you were looking for a reason to feel smug and not just tired this morning, we may have one. Several Dutch cities have landed among the 2026 Global Cities Index top 100 cities.
The Global Cities Index compares 1,000 cities, judging them across five areas: governance, economics, human capital, environment and quality of life.
And guess where the Netherlands shone particularly bright? The quality of life rankings, of course (takes a smug sip of coffee.)
Here’s how we rank
When it comes to the overall rankings, Amsterdam is the top performer from the Netherlands, landing in 21st place.
Utrecht follows behind, landing in 54th place overall, followed by Rotterdam in 67th, The Hague in 74th, and Eindhoven in 80th.
Falling outside the top 100, you’ll find Arnhem, sitting at 136th place, and Groningen in 231st.
However, these are just the overall rankings. The picture is slightly different (and surprising) when you look at how the Netherlands performed in terms of quality of life.
Arnhem makes a surprising jump
Remember good ol’ Arnhem sitting in 136th place overall? Well, turns out it’s actually one of the Netherlands best performers when the Global Cities Index looked at quality of life.
Jumping up to 33rd place in the quality of life rankings, it manages to outrank Amsterdam (which sits in 35th place) and lands just below Utrecht (which snags 30th.)
Eindhoven also makes a nice jump in this ranking, sitting in 45th place for quality of life. This is followed by Rotterdam in 65th, The Hague in 67th, and Groningen in 94th.
In other words, while the Netherlands performs well in the overall rankings, it performs even better when we look specifically at the quality of life in cities — and that’s a pretty good category to perform well in if you ask us.
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