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Las Vegas climbs seven spots to 89th in Oxford Economics' 2026 Global Cities Index, the Review-Journal reports
Oxford Economics ranked the Las Vegas metro 89th of 1,000 cities, up from 96th in 2025, citing GDP growth and a better environment score. Other recent rankings paint a mixed picture of the city and state.
What happened
British firm Oxford Economics placed Las Vegas 89th in the world in its 2026 Global Cities Index, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. The annual ranking covers the top 1,000 cities in the world. The Review-Journal said Las Vegas moved up seven spots from the 2025 list.
The same index ranks Las Vegas as the 31st top city in North America, a region that includes cities in Canada, the United States and Mexico, according to the Review-Journal.
Why Las Vegas moved up
Barbara Denham, a lead economist at Oxford Economics who worked on the report, explained the change in an email to the Review-Journal. "Las Vegas’s rankings improved from 96 to 89 overall," she said. She credited gains in both the economic ranking and the environment ranking.
Economic growth
On the economic side, Denham told the Review-Journal that the metro area's GDP growth rate "was the prime source" of the better score. The source did not give the specific growth figure used in the index.
Environment score
For the environment category, Denham said Las Vegas improved across most of the measures. She attributed that to the area having had little in the way of temperature or rain anomalies, according to the Review-Journal.
How the index is built
The Review-Journal reported that the index is broken into five categories: economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. The report did not detail how Las Vegas scored in the human capital, quality of life or governance categories.
Where Las Vegas lands on the global list
New York ranked first overall, followed by London, Paris, Seattle, San Francisco and Dublin, the Review-Journal reported. Las Vegas finished just behind Hong Kong and Lyon, France, and just ahead of Manchester, England, and Reykjavik, Iceland.
At the bottom of the 1,000-city list were Weinan, China; Sultanpur, India; and Sokoto, Nigeria, according to the Review-Journal.
Other rankings tell a mixed story
The Review-Journal also pointed to other recent rankings of Las Vegas and Nevada. Those studies reached different conclusions from each other.
Resonance: seventh in the U.S.
Research firm Resonance, which focuses on city-related data and statistics, recently ranked Las Vegas as the seventh best city in the country, the Review-Journal reported. That put Las Vegas ahead of several larger cities, including Dallas at 8th, Houston at 9th and Boston at 10th.
WalletHub: Nevada 45th of 50 states
A separate WalletHub study ranked Nevada as one of the worst places to live in the country, placing it 45th out of all 50 states, according to the Review-Journal. The factors cited included a crime rate above the national average and poor scores for both healthcare and education.
Residents can follow related topics in our Las Vegas development coverage, local schools reporting and public safety news.
What to watch next
- Oxford Economics' Global Cities Index is an annual ranking, and the 2026 list places Las Vegas 89th after 96th in 2025.
- The Review-Journal report did not detail Las Vegas's scores in the human capital, quality of life and governance categories.
- City-focused rankings from Oxford Economics and Resonance differ from WalletHub's statewide ranking of Nevada at 45th of 50 states.
