Luanda is world’s most expensive city

Angola's capital city Luanda has replaced Tokyo as the most expensive city in the world for US expatriates according to the latest Cost of Living Survey from Mercer. Tokyo is in second position, while Ndjamena (Chad) is now in third place. The survey's table of the world's 50 most expensive cities includes 10 from Africa.

After Luanda there are Tokyo, Japan; N’Djamena, Chad; Moscow, Russia; Geneva, Switzerland; Osaka, Japan; Libreville, Gabon, Hong Kong together tied with Zurich in Switzerland and Copenhagen, Denmark.

It is worth noting that for the first time three of the top 10 most expensive cities, according to the survey, are found in Africa.

The Mercer survey is the most comprehensive survey of the cost of living for some 214 cities around the world. This survey helps governments, multi-national companies and international organisations budget for their employees who are sent out to work in other places around the world.

The survey compares the cost of 200 items like housing, entertainment, food items, household goods and entertainment etc in each city.

New York is used as the base city for the index and all cities are compared against New York.

Currency movements are measured against the US dollar. The cost of housing – often the biggest expense for expatriates - plays an important part in determining where cities are ranked.