A new study conducted by language learning app Preply reveals the best European cities for raising children.
Placing as Europe’s fifth-best city to raise children, Prague’s high score is largely down to its great leisure and lifestyle prospects. The city’s high score in this category is thanks to the combination of the country’s paid maternity leave (196 days), the eighth longest in Europe, and Prague’s wealth of leisure/sports centres (per capita), and lower cost of living (37th).
The capital city also ranks in fifth place for the best ratio of museums to residents and its crime rates are among the twenty lowest (17th) among all cities analysed.
Fellow Czech city of Brno also features in the study, however, doesn’t rank as highly, placing as the 49th best city in Europe to raise a family.
The Czech Republic’s second-largest city suffers in comparison due to its poor choice of education attractions, parks and leisure facilities per capita.
Compared to Prague’s glowing attributes in the health and safety category, Brno also falls victims to its higher crime rate and high air pollution levels.
The capital of the Portuguese island Madeira, Funchal, ranks as the best city in Europe for raising a family. Other cities making up the top ten include Edinburgh (UK), Lisbon (Portugal), Galway (Ireland), Reykjavik (Iceland), Trieste (Italy) and Helsinki (Finland).
Analyzing over 130 European cities and their prospects across three categories – ‘Education’, ‘Health and Safety’ and ‘Leisure and Lifestyle’, contributing factors include teacher to student ratios, educational attractions and recreational spaces (per capita), healthcare accessibility, length of maternity leave, air quality and more.
Others making up “Europe’s Top 10’ include Trieste, Italy which ranks second overall but also in the ‘Education’ category and comes top for ‘choice of historical landmarks’.
Whilst UK city, Edinburgh, secures top marks (ranking 9th) thanks to its great educational prospects.
As the only country that features in the top ten twice, congratulations are order for Portugal, as the city of Lisbon ranks third-best in Europe thanks to its good score where air quality is concerned (5th). Reykjavik (Iceland), Galway (Ireland), Helsinki (Finland), Aarhus (Denmark) and Graz (Austria), complete Europe’s top ten cities to raise children.
About Preply
Preply is a global language learning marketplace, connecting 140,000 tutors with tens of thousands of students from all over the world.
Founded in 2012 and backed by some of the world’s leading investors, Preply is on a mission to shape the future of effective learning. Fueled by a belief that live engagement with a teacher is still the most effective way to learn a new skill, Preply is building a personalized learning space that will enable individual learners to reach their goals in the fastest way possible.
By examining the profiles of 1,000 CEOs from the Forbes list of largest global companies, Preply developed a ranking and index score of the best schools for the profession.
