Malmö isn’t playing second fiddle to its Danish neighbour across the Øresund Bridge. The city is its own dynamic Scandi centre, where tech firms, design studios, and start-ups hum happily in shipyards, relics of the city’s past as a shipbuilding powerhouse. Today’s Malmö still bristles with the same brains and brawn, anchored by Malmö University, which brings more than 25,000 students and faculty to its redeveloped harbourfront. That academic horsepower propels a #27 ranking for Educational Attainment and the city’s #15 rank for Labour Force Participation. 2025 marked the best tourist summer ever for Malmö, propelled by international visitors curious about the city’s relaxed, waterside way of life and crisp ocean air (ranked #21 for Air Quality). The swimmable Ribersborg Beach – plus spas and saunas like only Scandinavia does – make this mighty second city’s appeal plain to see. And nowhere is Malmö more mighty than in matters of climate, ranking #1 in our Climate Risk subcategory to go along with its fresh air. Active investments should maintain this supremacy: The transformation of Västra Hamnen into Sweden’s first carbon-neutral neighbourhood has become a Malmö-wide race to carbon neutrality by 2030. In 2025, the city invested nearly €2.8 million into 45 projects across sustainable urban planning, emission mitigation, and resilience.