How it works & where our data comes from
Meridian City Finder is a transparent matchmaker for deciding where to live or travel. It ranks 145 cities across 76 countries against what you actually care about — and shows its working, so you can trust the result instead of taking it on faith.
How the ranking works
Your answers become weights. A deterministic scoring model compares those weights against each city's sourced figures — cost of living, income tax, visa difficulty for your passport, safety, healthcare, climate, language and more — and produces a match score. The same model powers both the relocation matcher and the travel matcher.
AI never decides the ranking. The order is pure, inspectable maths. We only use AI to write the plain-English explanation of a result — grounded strictly in the same data — and every card shows a "how was this calculated" breakdown plus an honest note on what might not work for you.
What the data covers
- 145 cities
- 76 countries
- 76 countries with income-tax brackets
Each city carries cost of living (lean and comfortable), an itemised monthly breakdown, climate and best months to visit, safety, healthcare, air quality, walkability, English proficiency, visa openness, job-market strength by sector, and more — plus a short, honest summary of its downsides.
Where it comes from
Figures are hand-vetted from reputable references, with the month and year checked:
- Cost of living & rent — Numbeo, Expatistan and recent local listings, triangulated.
- Taxes — PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries and official tax authorities (personal income tax).
- Safety, healthcare, air quality — Numbeo indices and country-level sources.
- Climate — meteorological normals (average temperatures, sunny days, best months).
- English proficiency — the EF English Proficiency Index, at country level.
- Visas — official immigration / foreign-ministry programmes and digital-nomad-visa pages.
Honest limits
These are estimates to guide your research, not authoritative advice. Costs vary by neighbourhood and lifestyle; visa and tax rules change and depend on your individual situation. Nothing here is legal, tax or immigration advice. Before you move or travel, always confirm the specifics with official government sources.