The city beat the UK capital to be ranked 46th in the latest Economist Intelligence Unit's 'liveability' survey.
Manchester shares its position with Seattle, on the US west coast - London came 51st.
They were the only two British cities included in the survey of 140 around the world.
Vancouver, Canada, came top of the league table and Harare, Zimbabwe, came bottom.
The survey assesses stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.
Any city with a rating of 80 or more is deemed to have few challenges to living standards, while any city with a score of 50 or less presents daily challenges to living standards.
Cities which scored badly tended to be in Africa and Asia, with common threats including civil instability and poor infrastructure and the threat of invasion by another country.
Austria's capital Vienna ranked second, followed by Melbourne in third place. Toronto came fourth.
Canadian and Australian cities accounted for six of the top 10. Tweet
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Its a good job they didn't measure "quality of life" or crime. I haven't had a full nights sleep for 2 years living in this city.
Too right Gravy train. They should try living with the M602, M60 ETC right behind your house as i do. Apart from that i still thinks its the best. lol
Great to see Manchester doing so well in the Economist tables.
And you just need to knock those late night tv channels on the head, MPs Gravy Train.
Hang on till 2010.Things need a bit errrrm tweaking here just at the moment.
i was born and have lived in manchester for 60 years, been lucky, never had a problem, good friends, good family, northerners, will pass the time of day, have a laugh at life, in london which i have had to stay in for work, now and again. people are distant, hardwork, not a happy place.
Anywhere is better than london!
Ex Manchester.
Born and raised in Manchester. However, I worked in London for 4 years and honestly, the best 4 years of my life. When you get to know the place, find the cellar bars and great inexpensive restaurants etc, off the usual tourist haunts it is a wicked place.
I have worked in many countries and quite a few capitols. But for me London was a wicked time. As for the people being rude unlike 'salt of the earth' northerners. Not true. It is if you stick around the tourist haunts then yes, however mostly they are not Londoners. I found most of the indigenous Londoners very nice people.
I am sorry, I love Manchester dearly, but it doesn't come close to London. Count how many Milchelin stars are knocking around Manchester? How many of the new city center developments are stood empty? How many good quality genuine 'boozers' are in Manchester center now, I can give you 15 off the top of my head in and around the cool areas of London. Manchester has lost its character and Its full of pretentious bars. After all the traveling I have done, it seems Manchester tries to hard now to be up-market. It isn't............. It would still be my favorite city if we kept its unique identity, the pubs, the music venues and most of all the people! We used to set trends and have architecture the world would have been envious of. Now though, I feel its just another 'glass' skyline trying to be something it isn't and the people of Manchester are no longer innovators of fashion, just followers of what the orange people in 'Hello' look like.
London gets my vote, a top place and one of the best cities in the world if you know your way around............