Härryda offers the best conditions for a good life in Sweden, followed by Täby and Nacka. But when Fokus and Ekonomifakta rank all 290 municipalities in the country, it is primarily the smaller and prosperous municipalities around the major cities that dominate the top. Stockholm comes in at 44th place, Gothenburg at 141 – and the immigrant-dominated, financially struggling Malmö is all the way down at 249.

Where in Sweden is really the best place to settle down? The answer, of course, depends on whom you ask. Someone who prioritizes affordable housing may come to a completely different conclusion than someone who values the job market, school outcomes, healthcare, or proximity to nature the most.

Nevertheless, the magazine Fokus, together with Ekonomifakta, has made an attempt to measure the more concrete conditions for a good life. In this year’s “Best to Live,” all 290 Swedish municipalities have been compared using 33 statistical variables, divided into ten main areas.

The result places Härryda outside Gothenburg at the top in the country. Then follow Täby and Nacka, while Lomma and Staffanstorp complete the top five. Occupying the next places are Mölndal, Danderyd, Lidingö, Kävlinge, and Knivsta.

The Surrounding Municipalities Beat the Major Cities

A clear pattern at the top is that several prosperous municipalities in the metropolitan regions are ranked significantly higher than the major cities themselves. In the Stockholm area, Täby, Nacka, Danderyd, and Lidingö take four of the top eight spots. Härryda and Mölndal in the Gothenburg area as well as Lomma, Staffanstorp, and Kävlinge in Skåne are also among the top ten.

The major cities themselves do considerably worse. Stockholm ranks 44th, Gothenburg ranks 141st, and the immigrant-dominated Malmö doesn’t appear until 249th.

The differences are particularly noticeable between Malmö and its surrounding municipalities. Lomma ranks fourth in Sweden, Staffanstorp fifth, and Kävlinge ninth – while Malmö city has 248 municipalities ahead of it. The ranking thus provides, at least statistically, an image that proximity to a major city can offer better overall living conditions than actually living in it. The ethnic and demographic composition also plays a significant role.

Jobs and Personal Finances Weigh Heaviest

How the list turns out largely depends on what has been chosen to weigh the most. The ten areas do not carry the same importance when the final result is calculated. The greatest weight, 21 percent, is placed on work life and business. This includes, for example, the number of workplaces relative to the population, the possibility of commuting, long-term unemployment, business climate, self-sufficiency rate, as well as how many young people neither work nor study.

Next comes personal finances, at 17 percent. Here, house prices, rents, municipal tax, and median income are considered together with the housing market’s situation. This means that work life and personal finances together account for 38 percent of the municipality’s final result.

Healthcare and caregiving account for 12 percent, measured through wait times in primary care, the extent of elderly care, unplanned readmissions, patients’ satisfaction, and the opportunity for the elderly to get a place in their desired housing. Infrastructure carries 11 percent and includes proximity to public transport, the number of bike lanes, mobile coverage, and access to charging stations for electric cars.

Education accounts for 10 percent. There, proximity to primary school, high school qualification, and the proportion of qualified teachers are examined. Two areas weigh 9 percent each. Family life and leisure includes, among other things, preschool group sizes, municipal investments in culture, sports, and outdoor life, as well as distance to protected nature. Environment and health is based on air quality, average life expectancy, and traffic noise.

Safety Weighs Only Five Percent

Something to keep in mind when reading the list is that safety – which has long been in focus in the criminal and migration policy debate – is only given a 5 percent weight in this measurement. It is measured by the number of reported crimes per 100,000 inhabitants, across all crime categories combined.

For comparison, work life and business are thus over four times as important as safety, while work life and personal finances together are given more than seven times the significance.

This can have clear effects on individual municipality placements. Immigrant-dominated, crime-laden Malmö, for example, receives the lowest possible sub-score, 1.0, for safety, but much better results for infrastructure, education, environment, and health. The municipality still ends up far down in the overall ranking, at an embarrassing 249th place. Similarly, immigrant-dominated Södertälje, ranked 213th, and Eskilstuna at 278th, also receive 1.0 for safety.

The two remaining main areas, municipal economy and demography, weigh 3 percent each. The municipality’s economy is measured through solvency including pension commitments, while demography is measured using the so-called employed dependency ratio – how many young and old need to be supported per hundred employed.

How the Points Are Calculated

To make it possible to compare very different units, each variable is converted to a scale from 1 to 10. A municipality lying around the median receives roughly six points.

The scale is not determined by the absolute best and worst municipal value. Instead, the fifth and 95th percentiles are used as extremes. In this way, a single municipality with an extremely high or low value has less possibility to skew the comparison.

The variables normally weigh equally within each main area, but the areas themselves carry different weight. When data is missing, older statistics have sometimes been used, or alternatively the regional median value. Variables with large amounts of missing data have been given less significance.

The ranking also measures the conditions for those actually living in the municipality, not just aspects that the municipality itself can politically influence. Therefore, for example, regionally governed healthcare and public transport are also counted.

However, more difficult-to-measure qualities – such as local community life, togetherness, restaurant selection, or a place’s general attractiveness – are not included. The list should therefore be seen as a statistical comparison based on the selected factors and weighting, rather than a definitive answer to where every single Swede would be happiest.