What its like to live in the world’s ‘smartest cities’

Evaluating the world’s 'smartest' cities

A ranking of "smart cities" analyzes cities by economical and technological aspects as well as quality of life, inclusiveness, and care to the environment.

Explore a worldwide ranking of smart cities

This interactive site evaluates residents' perceptions of the infrastructure and technologies available to them across 146 cities to produce a ranking based on a Smart City Index. Users can utilize the City Comparison feature to compare their city with others around the world.

Smart city systems can increase positive feelings toward local government

A 2018 study analyzed 50 global cities to determine whether smart city technologies enhance residents' quality of life. It found that these technologies can decrease the time spent interacting with healthcare and government by 45% to 65%, while also decreasing the disease burden by 8% to 15%.

The world's 10 best places to live

The Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Liveability Index ranked 173 cities based on stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. The report shows an overall increase in livability scores compared to previous...

Singapore, one of the world's smartest cities

A fascinating look into what makes Singapore one of the smartest cities in the world, including human-centric innovations benefitting human health such as the AI-powered "Smart Elderly Alert System."

What is a smart city?

The internet of things and automation are two of the technologies used in smart cities. Learn about the technologies making cities more human-centric in this three-minute read.

Dubai and Barcelona are examples of smart cities

By integrating technology into public transit, utilities, and other municipal systems, these cities aim to reduce costs and enhance the quality of life for their residents. Some of these technologies include adaptive lighting, parking sensors, and underground waste systems.

Read a book making the case for 'smart enough' cities

University of Michigan professor Ben Green argues that cities should be enhanced by technology rather than driven by it, thereby preventing injustice and inequality beneath their surface. By embracing social change in conjunction with smart technologies, residents, Green suggests, can avoid valuing such technologies as ends in themselves.

Are smart cities a dumb idea?

Smart cities require vast troves of data to run, making their systems attractive to hackers. Listen to this one hour podcast to learn about the risks and what is being done to mitigate them.

Explore plans for smart cities expected to be built by 2050

Locations such as Net City in China, Woven City in Japan, and NEOM in Saudi Arabia are expected to incorporate green energy, AI, and advanced transportation system technologies to enhance air quality, reduce congestion, and minimize pollution by significantly reducing personal car use.

Smart cities like Songdo, South Korea, have created isolating environments

Built as a futuristic, eco-friendly city filled with smart features like pneumatic trash systems and app-controlled homes, the town provides limited opportunities for face-to-face interactions amid sterile backdrops. A focus on high-rise housing amplifies the lonely, disconnected atmosphere.

The 15-minute city lets residents meet their daily needs within 15 minutes on foot

Many cities have been designed with inefficient layouts that waste time and lower the quality of life of those who live there. In the 15-minute city, essential services—including work, food, education, and health—should all be located within a short walk or bike ride from where people live.

America's happiest cities in 2023

WalletHub analyzed 180 cities using thirty indicators—like depression rate and average leisure time—to rank each city by the happiness of its residents. Check out the list to see how your city ranks.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Tokyo is the world's largest city by population

Home to over 41 million people, the megacity used to be a humble fishing village called Edo. Since Japan opened to foreign trade in the mid-1800s, Tokyo has made significant economic advances and achieved numerous milestones in public transportation, urban planning and culture.

IBM helped turn Rio de Janeiro into a smart city before it hosted the World Cup

In response to the deadly floods and mudslides in 2010, Brazil and IBM developed a multimillion-dollar plan to modernize Rio's emergency management infrastructure. An operations center utilizes advanced weather forecasting, surveillance, and real-time data to surveil and respond to events such as severe storms more accurately.

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

Visit these 'blue zones,' where people live the longest

Blue zones, a term coined in 2004 by National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner, are regions in the world where people live the longest and healthiest lives. Researchers have identified a few key aspects defining the culture of these areas—physical activity, diet, purpose-driven lives, and more. Explore the top five blue zones from across the world here.

Explore IFA Berlin 2025 exhibits and navigate the world’s largest consumer tech floor

The IFA Berlin official site showcases standout moments from the 2025 event, including cutting-edge product debuts and its floor plan, which covers thousands of square meters of smart home, audio, and lifestyle tech.

The world’s most beautiful cinemas

Oakland, Madrid, and Mexico City are home to some of the most beautiful movie theaters in the world according to this extensive list. This resource compiles photos and interesting tidbits from 50 stunning cinemas, located in historic buildings and glistening modern structures.

Every city has a song: Music writers identify one tune that represents their hometown, from Chicago to Buenos Aires

Staffers from SPIN magazine wade into the contentious waters of official anthems, making the case for their chosen track, from Chicago's "Tonight, Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins to the Bobby Bare rendition of "The Streets of Baltimore."

Imagining the best places to live on Mars

Because conditions on Mars are pretty extreme for humanity, we tend not to think about living there, since everywhere on Mars feels a bit threatening. This imaginative essay uses current geographical knowledge of Mars to visualize what it would look like if humanity could alter its climate to make it widely habitable, a process known to sci-fi readers as terraforming. Given that transformation, where would the hottest neighborhoods be located?

See Silicon Valley's real estate, employment, population, and innovation statistics

As a leader in the global economy, Silicon Valley's growth is closely watched around the world. In 2025, companies in the region posted $92B in venture capital deals and created 23,000 new patents. The average wage in the region is $189K, which is much higher than the national average, but the median home price sits around $2.25M—which calls the sustainability of the region's living standards into question.

Davos becomes extremely heavily secured during the WEF

During the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, the city effectively turns into a fortress, guarded by thousands of Swiss army, police, and civil security personnel, with restricted airspace, drone surveillance, snipers, checkpoints, and round-the-clock patrols protecting global leaders.

The secret life of urban crows

Browse a list of the most important invention from each state

From Alabama's electric hearing aid and Idaho's television to Washington's artificial heart and Wisconsin's space suit, this map highlights technological breakthroughs with outsized impacts from each US commonwealth. The District of Columbia is also featured as the state of origin for the telegraph and Morse code. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Switzerland is widely considered the world capital of cheese

This charming infographic looks at the cheese-related habits of Europe’s top three cheese-producing countries: Italy, France, and Switzerland. Cheeses in France are reported to be the lightest, and Swiss cheeses the heaviest.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

An investigation suggests a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals via seafoam and seaspray—raising questions about what that means for the safety of other coastal areas.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

The United States is one of only around two dozen countries with a fully federal system of government, in which power is divided between national and state governments.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Ebola species have historically been named after where they were discovered, stigmatizing residents who live there, including Bundibugyo, in Uganda.