The Economist Intelligence Unit annually releases a "Liveability Ranking Report" that "assesses which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions." HR Departments routinely use it as a benchmark for whether or not a company's employees should get hardship pay. If you were, say, an oil man sent to grab Libya's natural resources at the behest of a major company (or after the "Lockerbie Bomber" was swapped for lucrative oil contracts), well, you'd be in the money! But it also wouldn't be much fun.

The report ranks cities by their infrastructure, stability, healthcare, education, culture and so on. For instance, out of the bottom 10 cities Tripoli's infrastructure is second to last. Not so surprising given months of NATO bombing, street fighting between rebels and Qaddafi loyalists, and the divvying up of the city into mini fiefdoms. However, Tripoli's stability rating is 50 out of 100 — not too bad, considering. The city's overall liveability ranking is 135 out of 140 (ouch), wedged between Algiers and Karachi.

Also, Melbourne, Australia dethroned perennial favorite Vancouver as the best city in the world to live in.

[Image via Getty]