Top Ten List of Best Places to Live in 2011

1. Vienna, Austria

Vienna, Austria tops the list and stands at #1 as the best place in the world to live with a Mercer score of 108.6. Vienna is Austria’s Capital. It is its cultural, economic, and political center with a population of about 1.7 million. The city has it’s own unique colors. Vienna experiences 4 season in an year with a mild summer season and a rather windy and rainy winter season. GDP of Austria is $361.791 billion. Vienna has an extensive transportation system and a very reliable health system. The country’s political stability also makes it a place worth living. Life expectancy in Vienna is 79.5 years.

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2. Zurich, Switzerland

The largest city of Switzerland, Zurich is the 2nd best city with a Mercer score of 108.0. The cities total population is 365,098. The city has a life expectancy of 80.74 years. GDP of Switzerland is$491.4 billion. Zurich is the financial center of Switzerland and houses the stock exchange and the headquarters of a large number of national and international companies. The city is known as ”Portal to the Alps” due to it’s close distance to tourist resorts in the Swiss Alps and its mountainous scenery. The city is also famous for it’s famous watchmakers. It is a beautiful city with an elegant infrastructure, a warm and cozy environment offering a unique mix of discovery, pleasure, nature and culture.

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3. Geneva, Switzerland

Geneva, Switzerland is the second most populous city of Switzerland with a population of185,958. The city is catching the attention of more and more people due to it’s wonderful quality of life. It has gained a Mercer score of 107.9. Geneva is a city of prime importance being a major center of international diplomacy. The city has excellent health care and education system. It is stable politically and economically as the GDP of Switzerland is $491.4 billion.

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4. Auckland, New Zealand

Standing at #4 is Auckland. There is a tie between Vancouver and Auckland as both the cities have a Mercer score of 107.4. New Zealand’s most beautiful and biggest city, Auckland has breathtaking scenery, beautiful beaches, idyllic holiday islands, outstanding food and wine, great shopping and exciting nightlife. Auckland has a warm-temperate climate, with warm, humid summers and mild, damp winters. The city has a population of 1.18 million and an average life expectancy at birth of80.24 years. GDP of New Zealand is $119.549 billion.

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5. Vancouver, Canada

The amazing city of Vancouver is a coastal city located in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is a perfect place to live with a well developed and well established infrastructure, brilliant tourism spots, high educational standards and great health care system. The Mercer score of the city is 107.4. It is the largest metropolitan area in Western Canada. The city has a population of 578,041 and an average life expectancy at birth of 81.16 years. The GDP of Canada is $1.522 trillion.

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6. Dusseldorf, Germany

Again from Germany is Duesseldorf with a Mercer score of 107.2. Today’s Duesseldorf is quite different from the Duesseldorf of the past. Modern day Dusseldorf is an important international business and financial center, renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. The GDP of Germany is$3.673 trillion. The city has a population of 586,217. It has brilliant health care system and a stable political situation.

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7. Munich, Germany

Munich is the capital city of Bavaria (Bayern), Germany. It is located on the River Isar, north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich has a Mercer score of 107.0. The GDP of Germany is $3.673 trillion. Munich is a financial and publishing hub, and a frequently top-ranked destination for migration and expatriate location. Munich has a continental climate, with a strong impact due to the proximity of the Alps. City’s architecture is a mix of ethnic and cultural architecture and modern architecture. The average life expectancy of Munich at birth is 79.1 years.

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8. Frankfurt, Germany

Standing at #8 is Frankfurt am Main also known as Frankfurt, the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a population of 672,000. There is a tie between Frankfurt and Munich as both have a Mercer score of 107.0. It is the business and financial center of Germany. Frankfurt is a city of contrasts with wealthy bankers, students and granola drop-outs coexisting in a city. The sky scrapers of the city give the city a beautiful modern look on a cultural background. The GDP of Germany is $3.673 trillion making Frankfurt an ideal place to move to. Life expectancy of Frankfurt at birth is 79.26 years.

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9. Bern, Switzerland

The city at #9 is Bern from Switzerland. Bern is the fourth most populous city of Switzerland with a population of 123,466. Bern is a beautiful city with a rich culture and creative infrastructure. The city has a well established transportation system. The life expectancy in Bern at birth is 80.3 years. Switzerland has a stable economy with a GDP of $491.4 billion making Bern an ideal place to live.

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10. Sydney, Australia

Sydney makes it to # 10 in our list of 10 Best Places To Live In 2011 with a Mercer score of 106.3. The city has an average life expectancy of 80.73 years. It has a population of 4,504,469. The city is known for tourism, entertainment and outdoor sports. Sydney has grown to become a wealthy and prosperous city, ranking as the second wealthiest city in the world in terms of per Capita purchasing power. The GDP of Switzerland is $494.6 billion. Sydney has a temperate climate with mild winters and warm winters.

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Winter Storm Turns Lighthouse Into An Ice Castle

The Cleveland Harbour West Pierhead lighthouse is unrecognisable after heavy winds lifted massive waves over the lighthouse on Lake Erie in the state of Ohio. Some of the water froze on impact, eventually encasing the structure in a frosty shell. Matt Grabski from Clevelands's Great Lakes Science Centre told AOL news that what happened was unique.

A really big storm came through and threw a lot of wind. The waves on the lake kept battering the lighthouse and splashing it. The water turned into ice and it kept building up and accumulating, he said. The lighthouse’s flashing red-and-white light signal has been difficult to see through the thick layers of ice.

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Most Bizarrely Shaped Lakes and Rivers

1.The Lake Eros had a hand in

Nature again has romantic designs with a lake in the shape of the universal symbol for love. This one is to be found in the less frost-bitten environment of Kerala, India – specifically within the beautiful Wayanad district, near Chembra Peak, at about 1,398 metres above sea level. With a surface area of 1,827 square meters, it’s not a big a heart, but it is a fairly warm one.

2 The Lake that leads the Latin Alphabet

To be honest there are simply loads of heart-shaped lakes out there – everywhere from Ohio to Korea – so we just didn’t have room for all of them here. Shot from a balloon, this next lake – or perhaps more accurately pond – looks like the letter ‘A’ to us. Anyone know of other lakes that spell something out to them? We’d be interested to hear.

3. Schulensmeer Lake – Belgium

Nature had a little help from Man with this pistol-like body of water, Belgium’s 2.5 km long Schulensmeer, but it’s coincidence it looks like an ad for the next 007 movie. It was artificially created in the ’70s when sand was needed to build a nearby highway, and owes its shape to the parcels of land that were bought for this purpose. Popular for watersports, it’s also an overflow for the Demer River in case of flooding.

4. McKinley Lake – Alaska

This frozen-over, fish-shaped wonder was captured on Alaska’s Mt. McKinley, the highest mountain peak in North America at around 6,194 metres. Mount McKinley actually has a larger rise than Mount Everest, as its base sits at a much lower elevation of 610 m, and is also bulkier than its Himalayan rival. With such imposing facts, it’s no wonder this obscurely fishy lake is less well-known.

5. Sao Paulo Lake – Brazil

This next shape is clearly a product of deliberate human intervention in the natural landscape, a figure that stands some 140 metres tall in a lake located near Iacanga in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. However, aside from its location and vital statistics, information about this strange piece of land art is scarce. Anyone know anything we don’t? If so, pray do tell.

6.The Lake that says ‘How do you do?’

The previous lake may have been man-shaped by design, but this next one looks more natural; natural but not au naturel – see he’s wearing a hat and cane as he walks across the countryside. We’re not sure where this is, but we’ve featured it on EG before and one commenter reckoned it could be Blythefield Reservoir in Staffordshire, England; another said it must be Mr. Peanut of Planters fame.

7. Horseshoe Lake – Canada

Canada’s aptly-named Horseshoe Lake might bring luck for some, but geographically oxbow lakes like this are not uncommon. These sweeping U-shaped bodies of water are formed when a wide meander from a river’s main stem is cut off, creating the characteristically curved lake. This fine-looking example is located along the long the Red River, near Morris in southern Manitoba.

8. Fisheating Creek – Florida

In this next pic a few emergent oxbow lakes are visible, one of which forms the eye of some strange-looking creature. Is it a bird sticking out its tongue and spitting stuff out? Maybe it’s just us. Anyways, the zigzagging body of water forming the outline of whatever-it-is is Fisheating Creek, which runs through Cowbone March west of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, itself known as The Big O.

9.Horseshoe Bend – Arizona

So how do oxbow lakes arise? Well many of them start out a lot like this. Yes, we know, it isn’t a lake, but it could be one in the making. This is Arizona’s Horseshoe Bend, a magnificent meander of the Colorado River situated slightly downstream from Lake Powell within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. From the steep cliff above, some 305 metres higher up, it makes a breathtaking sight.

10.Heart shaped lake, possibly in Korea

Look hard enough and you’ll see the physical environment, both natural and man-made, has a message for us – sometimes in the most unusual places. Lakes and other bodies of water aren’t the first places one might expect to discern symbols, figures and other shapes, but viewed from above they can be surprisingly communicative. We’ve scoured the globe for images of lakes whose shapes speak volumes.

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