Life is best in these Polish cities. A surprise at the top of the ranking

Which Polish cities are the best to live in? The Business Insider ranking compared 16 largest centers – one from each voivodeship. Both economic indicators and factors affecting the comfort of everyday life were analyzed.

During the analysis, journalists took into account the level of unemployment, average wages and prices of apartments on the secondary market. They also assessed access to doctors, crime levels and air quality.

This year’s edition brought a change at the very top. The first place was taken ex aequo by two cities: Poznań and Rzeszów. This is a historic debut for the capital of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship – it has never been ranked highest before.

In the ranking prepared by BI half a year ago, Katowice was the leader, ahead of Poznań, Rzeszów and Gdańsk. This time the capital of the Silesian Voivodeship dropped to third place.

Rzeszów and Poznań at the top. What determined the outcome?

Interestingly, Rzeszów is distinguished primarily by a very low crime rate. The city is also on the podium in the category of availability of doctors for residents.

However, there are areas that require improvement. It is primarily about the availability of housing and the level of unemployment. In these two categories, Rzeszów ranks 10th and 12th, respectively, among all the analyzed cities.

Poznań, in turn, can boast the lowest unemployment among all cities. In many other categories it ranks around the middle, ranking between fifth and eighth. The biggest problem of the capital of Greater Poland remains air quality – only three cities fare worse in this respect.

Just behind the leaders were Katowice and Lublin, which scored the same number of ranking points and are only two points behind the first place.

Katowice still has the best availability of apartments in the price-to-salary ratio, although the city has dropped in the ranking of average salaries. Lublin, in turn, owes its high position mainly to short queues to doctors under the National Health Fund and a low level of crime.

Surprises in the ranking. Warsaw up, Gdańsk down

There are plenty of surprises in the latest ranking. One of them is the clear advancement of Warsaw – the capital of Poland was often placed in the second half of the top ten. This time, however, she took fifth place. Although Warsaw is not a leader in any category, in two of them – unemployment and wages – it ranks high, i.e. second. It also improved its results in the air quality category.

Lublin also recorded significant progress, moving up four places compared to the previous edition of the ranking.

In turn, Gdańsk dropped from fifth to eighth place. This is the city’s lowest position in over two years.

Worst rated cities? There are a few surprises

Which cities performed the worst in the ranking? We can expect big surprises here too. Kielce took last place, followed by Kraków, Wrocław and Gorzów Wielkopolski – all with the same point result.

In the case of Krakow, the biggest advantage remains high earnings and relatively low unemployment. At the same time, residents have to cope with very expensive apartments, poor air quality and relatively high crime rates.

The ranking was based on data from official sources. Statistics published by the Central Statistical Office, the National Health Fund, the Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection and the Morizon website were used.

As Onet explains, the analysis included the unemployment rate, average wages, crime rate and number of inhabitants. Data on access to doctors were based on the average waiting time for a visit to specialists under the National Health Fund. In turn, air quality was assessed based on the average level of PM10 suspended dust in the period from January 1 to December 31, 2025.

The final number of points for each city is the sum of places in the six analyzed categories. The lower the score, the better the position in the ranking.