Methodology

Asia-Pacific’s Best Cities Methodology

How we ranked Asia-Pacific’s Best Cities for 2025

To rank the performance and perception of Asia-Pacific’s Best Cities for 2025, Resonance analyzed the principal cities of metropolitan statistical areas with populations of more than 1,000,000 (according to Demographia, our population source). We determined the Top 100 cities using a combination of core statistics and user-generated data from online sources such as Google, Tripadvisor and Instagram to measure quality of place when it comes to experiential factors.

This blend of data led to the creation of Resonance’s proprietary Place Power™ Score, the foundation of all of our Best Cities rankings. So how does Resonance choose the metrics to effectively measure an urban region’s performance relative to its competitors? While many factors shape our perception of urban regions as desirable places to live, work or visit, Resonance’s proprietary Place Power™ Score rankings are focused on the shared factors that demonstrate moderate to strong correlations with the performance of urban regions when it comes to attracting prime age population (age 25–44), visitor expenditure and/or business formation.

Based on our ongoing analysis, these factors are an eclectic mix that ranges from the number of Fortune 500 (Global) companies and ease of airport connectivity to the number of nightlife and outdoor recreation experiences and the volume of check-ins on Facebook and mentions on Instagram. Since these factors can change and evolve over time, we’re continually updating our methodology to reflect these shifts. Case in point: we’ve included factors like “Price-to-Income Ratio” (to track affordability) and Healthcare System Index (to measure a city’s concern for the well-being of residents) to this year’s inaugural Asia-Pacific index.

We also removed inputs like Weather and Safety to more accurately represent the latest verified drivers of talent, investment and tourism to a city As part of our new partnership with Ipsos, we combined the performance data of the subcategories that comprise our overall Livability, Lovability and Prosperity indices with perception data reflecting the opinions and preferences of 7,006 respondents across nine Asia-Pacific countries (Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand). Each country was given equal weight in the total data set. The survey was constructed to extract the towns and cities where these 7,006 people would most like to live, where they would most like to visit, and where they believe they would find the best job opportunities. This was accomplished with three open-ended questions where respondents could identify the towns and cities that they prefer.

We asked them, when thinking about places across the globe, including small towns and large cities: which three towns or cities would you most like to live in, most like to visit and think currently offer the best job opportunities?

This open-ended question methodology enabled us to capture the destinations that are top-of-mind to survey participants rather than restricting them to a predetermined list of cities. The responses to these questions were aggregated and coded to benchmark the perception equivalent of our performance results, creating a true balance across our three overall indices of Lovability, Livability and Prosperity.