Madrid: how we arrived at a score of 7.99 in the World ranking

Madrid ranks third in the World ranking of Onde Viver Bem, with a score of 7.99 on a 0-to-10 scale. Until the November 10, 2026 update it ranked first, with 8.41; the drop came mainly from the new safety score, which now adds robbery and the feeling of safety to violent deaths, and, to a lesser extent, from the November 10, 2026 adjustments to bars and restaurants (details below). The score is editorial and indicative: it follows the site's own methodology, with 13 variables and fixed weights. Cost of living and the price per square metre are not part of the score. The position is a reference, not a verdict or a recommendation to invest, immigrate or buy property.

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The ranking asks where life is better in a post-AGI world, with less work and more free time, nature and company. The Madrid profile gathers the raw figures and the source of each variable. This article explains how those pieces add up, describes the city with the data in the base, and covers the land market, the reference price of housing and the taxes we have already collected.

The city in the database

Madrid is the capital of Spain, in the Community of Madrid. The municipality has 3,506,730 inhabitants in the 2025 base, in the city/municipality cut of Wikidata (Q2807). The central point used in the calculations is at 40.41694° N, 3.70333° W, at about 660 m of altitude. Within a 50 km radius, the highest point sampled in the elevation model reaches 1,691 m; mountainous relief lies about 30 km away.

Altitude and relief: DEM sampling via Open-Meteo Elevation, collected on November 9, 2026.

The climate helps explain the weakest point in the score. In the 2015–2024 normals, July has a mean maximum of 34.4 °C; January, a maximum of 10.3 °C and a minimum of 1.0 °C. Only 84.9 days a year fall in the methodology's thermal-comfort band — a maximum between 18 and 30 °C and a minimum of at least 10 °C. That yields a score of 2.57 for mild climate, the lowest of the 13 variables, with a weight of 4.97%.

Monthly normals and comfort days: ERA5 via Open-Meteo Archive (2015–2024), collected on November 9, 2026.

Safety, the largest weight

The variable with the largest weight is safety, at 15%. Since November 10, 2026 the score combines three parts, and Madrid scores 6.94. Violent deaths (40%): 0.61 per 100,000 inhabitants, from Spain's Ministry of the Interior crime statistics, added to the Eurostat series of undetermined-intent deaths in the Community of Madrid (0.27 per 100,000, 2021–2023 average); the police series in the same official report points to 0.34 per 100,000 in 2024. On the logarithmic scale (30 per 100,000 scores 0; 0.5 scores 10), that is 9.51. Robbery compared with the country (30%): 233.1 robberies with violence or intimidation per 100,000 inhabitants in 2024, 1.80 times Spain's average (129.5), in the same official report; score 4.44. Feeling of safety (30%): 69% of residents say they feel safe walking alone at night, in the European Commission's quality-of-life survey of cities (2023); score 6.00. Before the update, only the first part counted, and the score was 9.51.

Sources: Balance de criminalidad of Spain's Ministry of the Interior (local homicides and the police series) and Eurostat hlth_cd_ycdr2 (Y10–Y34 and Y87.2, geo ES30) and European Commission/Eurostat, Quality of Life in European Cities 2023 (feeling of safety).

Life outside the home, culture and entertainment

Urban life also scores well. Bars score 8.58 (878 OSM objects within 2 km and 1,123 in Overture Maps; 2,471 in the municipality in OSM, or 7.05 per 10,000 inhabitants, and 3,347 in Overture). Restaurants reach 8.64 (2,068 in OSM and 3,453 in Overture within 2 km; 4,867 and 10,683 in the municipality). Since November 10, 2026 the score for these two variables is the average of an OSM score and an Overture score on the same scale, and bars weigh 3.73% (previously 7.45%). Parks stand at 8.54 (107 within 2 km; 2,147 in the municipality, 6.12 per 10,000). The OSM counts are from July 27, 2026 and, like any collaborative map, may have coverage gaps.

Entertainment, culture and airports hit the maximum score of 10. Within 50 km there are 21 destinations (theme parks, zoos, aquariums and water parks) and 149 stadiums or music venues — 170 in total, above the cap of 120 in the A1ed variant, which accounts for 11.73% of the score since November 10, 2026 (previously 8%). Culture counts 280 theatres, cinemas, cultural centres or museums within 5 km (the scale caps at 150). Airport: 2 aerodromes with an IATA code within 50 km, which already reaches the maximum of the rule (0 with no airport, 7 with one, 10 with two or more).

Counts: OpenStreetMap via the ohsome API, July 27, 2026; bars and restaurants also from Overture Maps Places (release of October 21, 2026, Overture Maps Foundation, CDLA Permissive 2.0). Densities use the municipal population of 3,506,730 (Wikidata, 2025).

Nature nearby — no sea beach

Beach or mountains reaches 9.02, the second-largest weight (11.59%). The name needs a careful reading: Madrid is not on the coast. The “beach” metric measures the distance to water mapped in OpenStreetMap — sea, lake or river — and here the value is 15 km, with a partial score of 6.77. That is not a Mediterranean beach. The mountain side weighs a little more (partial score 6.99): mountainous relief is 30 km away, and the richness of nature leisure within 50 km hits the cap (10), with 56 waterfalls, 28 protected areas, 111 trail routes and 317 mapped viewpoints. The variable's final score is the maximum of beach and mountains, plus 30% of the minimum, capped at 10.

Distance to water: OSM via ohsome. Relief: Open-Meteo Elevation. Nature-leisure counts within 50 km: ohsome, July 27, 2026.

Sun, water, air and health

Sun scores 6.62, with 1,728.5 kWh/m²/year of radiation from 2015 to 2024 (linear scale: 1,000 kWh scores 0; 2,100 kWh scores 10). Water stands at 6.77 — and this figure is measured at country level, not for the municipality. In 2022, Spain's water stress was 43.254% of withdrawals over available resources; in 2024, 99.458% of the country's population had safely managed water (World Bank). The score is the average of the two scales.

Clean air scores 8.24, with annual mean PM2.5 of 10.272 µg/m³ in 2024, according to the WHO air-quality database (the organization's target is 5 µg/m³; the scale runs from 35 µg/m³ = 0 to 5 µg/m³ = 10). Health reaches 9.63: life expectancy of 83.888 years in Spain in 2024 (World Bank) and 73 OSM hospitals within 10 km.

Sun: ERA5 via Open-Meteo. Water and life expectancy: World Bank water stress, safely managed water and life expectancy. Air: WHO Ambient Air Quality Database v2026-v8. Hospitals: OSM via ohsome, July 27, 2026.

Land, housing and taxes

The price the site shows next to the score is the square metre of land, not of an apartment. In Madrid, the profile shows US$ 840/m² (EUR 750). The official figure comes from the land-price statistics of Spain's Ministry of Housing (MIVAU): a simple average of four quarters (2025 Q3 to 2026 Q2) of urban-land transactions recorded at the registry, for municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants in the province. There is no figure for the capital municipality alone: the band includes the city and neighbours of the same size. Further into the province, the same series points to EUR 319/m² (US$ 357) in municipalities of 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants and EUR 170/m² (US$ 190) in municipalities of 1,000 to 5,000 inhabitants.

Source: MIVAU, Estadística de Precios de Suelo (VDP004_01), collected on November 9, 2026. Conversion to dollars: EUR 0.89342 per USD on November 9, 2026, ECB reference rates via the Frankfurter API. Dollar figures rounded as on the profile (US$ 840, 357 and 190).

The square-metre price of an apartment is shown only as a reference, off the chart axis and out of the score. On Numbeo, the crowdsourced average of the last 18 months to November 8, 2026 is EUR 8,077/m² in the centre, EUR 4,143/m² outside the centre and EUR 6,110/m² in the simple average of the two cuts (US$ 6,839). That is 266 responses from 48 contributors; it is not an official index or a recorded transaction.

Numbeo, property investment in Madrid, collected on November 9, 2026. Same exchange rate of November 9, 2026.

On transfers of resale property, the general rule of the Community of Madrid for the property transfer tax (ITP) is a 6% rate, with a 10% tax relief for a main residence of up to EUR 250,000. New-build property falls under VAT plus AJD, not this ITP rate. The annual property tax (IBI) is still a gap in this database: it was not collected in this round, and we do not invent a rate.

ITP: Comunidad de Madrid — Atención al contribuyente (2026; collected via the official page index on November 9, 2026 — check the current text on the official site before any decision).

What the score does not say

Some of the data on bars, restaurants, parks, culture, hospitals, airports and nature leisure come from collaborative maps, which are subject to gaps. Water is a national indicator for Spain, not a picture of the capital's network. The land price is a provincial average by municipality-size band, not the value of a neighbourhood. The score does not include cost of living, rent, wages, visas or school quality. The 7.99 score is an indicative summary of the current methodology, with the caveats above, not a ranking of the “best city in the world” in an absolute sense.

The full methodology, the scales and the source of each figure are on the methodology page. The Madrid profile keeps the variable-by-variable detail; the map and the land × score chart place the city in the set.