A land of vast distances and rich natural resources, Canada occupies most of northern North America. By total area, it is the world’s second largest country and shares borders with the USA to the south (Alaska to the northwest).

British and French expeditions discovered the land inhabited for millennia by various aboriginal peoples. Canada is today a federation of ten provinces and three territories. With a high-tech industrial society, Canada maintains a diversified economy, technologically advanced and industrialized. Continue reading »

The 2004 Quality of Living Survey of Mercer Human Resource Consulting established a ranking with Best Cities to Live in for Expatriate Workers. Five out of first six cities are Canadian, with Ottawa, the national capital, topping the list. It is followed by Vancouver and Calgary.

As expected, countries open to a large number of immigrants (such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand) performed best. From Europe, a special mention for Germany (with five cities in top 20). From US, only Honolulu appears in the list. Ranking is based on a derived index, in which both the quality of living index and the cost of living index have been included. Continue reading »

The 2007 Quality of Living Survey of Mercer Human Resource Consulting also provides a Health and Sanitation Ranking, with the top 50 cities in the world. According to this survey, Calgary (Canada) ranks first, followed by Honolulu (USA) and Helsinki (Finland).

The ranking considered basically factors for healthcare and quality of living: availability of affordable hospital services and medical supplies, absence or treatement of infectious diseases, water potability, troublesome and destructive animals/insects, waste removal, sewage and air quality, pollution. Continue reading »