Global Cities Index

The Global Cities Index provides a comprehensive ranking of the leading global cities from around the world. The Index shows how these cities are integrating with the rest of the world as leaders in globalization. The study was developed by A.T. Kearney, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Foreign Policy magazine.

The Global Cities Index is designed to track the way cities maneuver as their populations grow and the world continues to shrink.

2010 Global Cities Index

For 2010, the Index ranked 65 cities from around the world. New York tops the list of global cities. Other leaders include Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong, Chicago, Los Angeles and Singapore. Each of these cities excels across multiple dimensions.

Asian cities are on the move and may be the new claimants to global prominence. Of the top 10 cities, five are in the Asia-Pacific region—Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney and Seoul. Many others, especially in China and India, are knocking at the door: They are drawing in jobs and investment from the rest of the world.

The Urban Elite – The A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index 2010
View the complete rankings of the 65 cities for 2010.

See also Metropolis Now — Images of the World's Top Global Cities
A project of Foreign Policy, A.T. Kearney, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs

Methodology
By measuring cities’ international presence, we can get an accurate picture of globalization—the workings of the interconnected world. The Index ranks cities on 25 metrics across five dimensions:

• Business activity. Fortune Global 500 headquarters and the value of a city’s capital markets, number of international conferences, flow of goods, and the volume of the goods that pass through the city
• Human capital. Size of a city’s foreign-born population, the quality of its universities, the number of international schools, the international student population and the percentage of residents with university degrees
• Information exchange. Number of international news bureaus, the level of censorship, the amount of international news in the leading local papers and the broadband subscriber rate
• Cultural experience. Number of major sporting events a city hosts, how many museums, performing arts venues and diverse culinary establishments, as well as the sister-city relationships.
• Political engagement. Number of embassies and consulates, major think tanks, international organizations and local institutions with international reach that reside in the city, and the number of political conferences a city hosts

Recent Media Highlights

Top Global Cities 2010: The World's Leading Cities Go Head to Head
5 October 2010 — BusinessWeek
Global management consultancy A.T. Kearney often counsels its corporate clients where to set up or expand overseas operations and where to locate key executives. To buttress its advice, the firm two years ago assembled a study of the world's top cities.

2010 Global Cities Index Ranks New York, London, Tokyo and Paris as top Global Cities
4 October 2010
New York, London, Tokyo and Paris are the world’s top global cities according to the 2010 Global Cities Index from global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and Foreign Policy magazine.

The Top 10 Most Global Cities
9 September 2010 — Wall Street Journal
Among other things, Foreign Policy magazine, working with A.T. Kearney and the Chicago Counsel on Global Affairs, looked at how many Fortune Global 500 company headquarters were in a city, the size of its capital markets, and the number of embassies, think tanks, political organizations, and museums.

Cities like Seattle look abroad for prosperity at home
7 February 2010 — The Seattle Times
An unsurprising set of the most globally connected cities — among them New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Singapore and Chicago — emerged in a "Global Cities Index" developed by the journal Foreign Affairs, the consulting firm A.T. Kearney and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Earlier Reports

• 2008 Global Cities Index