Damascus remains the world's least liveable city and most of the previous ten least liveable cities remain in the bottom ten this year, including Dhaka and Karachi in the Asia-Pacific region, as per the the 2021 edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit's (The EIU) Global Liveability Ranking. However, overall, the COVID-19 pandemic caused liveability to decline - as cities experienced lockdowns and significant strains on their healthcare system. This led to an unprecedented level of change in the rankings, with many of the cities that were previously ranked as the most liveable tumbling.

With an average score of 68.6, cities in the Asia-Pacific region scored below the average of 73.09 recorded before the pandemic began. The 2021 edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit's (The EIU) Global Liveability Ranking finds that Auckland is the most liveable city in the world. There is a strong contingent of cities in the APAC region at the top of the rankings, with Osaka, Adelaide, Tokyo and Wellington rounding out the top five. Auckland rose to the top of the ranking owing to its successful approach in containing the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed schools, theatres, restaurants and other cultural attractions to remain open and the city to score strongly on a number of metrics including education, culture and environment.