Where Should I Live Test

The Where Should I Live Test works through four parts of a life abroad. First comes the climate: how warm you want a summer afternoon, how mild a winter one, how much sun you want and how much the weather should count. Then the setting: how densely populated the country should be and how close the sea. Then eight priorities, each rated from essential to not a factor: safety, a low cost of living, high incomes, healthcare, equal rights, clean air and green land, how happy people are with their lives, and free time. Last come the language you get by in best and whether you would learn a new one.

Every answer gives points to each of the 31 countries, more to the countries that do best on what it asks for. The points come from a model that ranks 167 countries on published figures: the climate records of their largest cities, population density, coastlines, homicide rates and a peace index, price levels, national income per person, life expectancy and access to health care, gender equality and legal equality for LGBT people, fine-particle air pollution and forest cover, how people rate their own lives, and annual working hours. The more an answer says something matters, the more points it can give. Answers that rule something out, such as “Not a factor” or “No preference”, count toward none.

Large countries have more than one climate, so they were compared through several of their big cities. A taker who wants freezing winters can be matched with Canada through Montreal or Toronto, and one who wants a mild winter through Vancouver; the United States ranges from Miami to Seattle. Australia ranges from warm Melbourne to hot, sunny Brisbane and Perth, and Japan from snowy Sapporo to hot, humid Osaka and Fukuoka.

The 31 countries are the ones ranked in Expat Insider 2026, the yearly survey of people living abroad by InterNations, which ranks a country when enough of them live there to answer, plus New Zealand, Australia's neighbour. Panama is ranked there too but was left out, because no figure for its working hours is published. Between them they cover every continent, and they differ a great deal: Thailand and Malaysia are hot all year and far cheaper than most, Singapore and Norway pay the most, Singapore and the Netherlands are the most crowded, and Australia and Canada are among the emptiest countries on Earth.

Language matters more than many people expect. Daily life is much easier in a country where you speak the language, and English goes further in some places than others: it is the main language of Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, an official language of Singapore and South Africa, and widely spoken in the Netherlands, the Nordic countries and Malaysia. If you would rather not learn a new language, the test leans toward countries where you can get by with the one you have.

Your chart shows the five countries that fit you best and the five that fit you least, each with a percentage: how much of what the country could score your answers gave it. The country with the highest percentage is your match. If two countries tie at the top, no single one wins. A country with a low percentage isn't a bad place to live; it simply fits fewer of the answers you gave. The test has no norms and compares you with no one.

The Where Should I Live Test is a quiz for fun and for thinking about what you want. National figures say little about a single city or neighbourhood, and much of what decides a move isn't in any dataset: visas and residence rules, your work, taxes, family and friends, and how welcome you would feel. Figures also change over time. Treat your result as a starting point for reading more, not as advice on where to move.

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