Karachi has been named among the least liveable cities of the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) — the research and analysis division of The Economist Group — in a report released earlier this week.

Karachi maintains its 134th rank in the listing of 140 cities, only managing to fare better than Port Moresby, Dhaka, Tripoli, Lagos and Damascus.

The cities have been ranked according to qualitative and quantitative factors falling broadly in the categories of stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

The survey only includes "cities or business centres that people might want to live in or visit"; therefore, it excludes cities like Kabul or Baghdad, where conflict is ongoing. However, cities like Damascus, which were in the near past relatively unstable, have been included.

Melbourne remains the most liveable city in the world for the seventh time in a row, while two other Australian and three Canadian cities have made it to the 10 most liveable cities in the world.

Karachi, on the other hand, has maintained its spot for the third year in a row. Interestingly, the city has neither improved nor worsened in any of the five categories since 2015, according to the ranking.