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The Harbour City has really been stealing the spotlight when it comes to running over the past few weeks (yes, we all saw footage from the glorious City2Surf and Sydney Marathon), but according to a new global ranking, Melbourne is officially the best city in the world for running in 2026 – beating 59 other cities to take the top spot.
The ranking comes from Compare the Market Australia, which assessed 60 cities around the world to work out where runners have the best combination of infrastructure, environment, affordability and lifestyle.
Melbourne scored 56.70 out of 100, putting it comfortably ahead of second-placed Sydney, which scored 53.91. Keen to understand the methodology? Researchers assessed ten key metrics, including the number of running trails, air quality, safety, running events, marathons and half-marathons, rainfall, sunshine hours, cost of living and interest in running clubs. For the global ranking, they also factored in physical inactivity rates. Each factor was collected and then normalised to a score between zero and one, then those scores were combined to give each city an overall score out of 100.
The data was sourced from a bunch of different places, including AllTrails for running routes, IQAir for air quality, Numbeo for safety and cost of living, Ahotu for running events and races, climate data for rainfall and sunshine, Google search data for running club interest and the World Health Organisation for physical inactivity rates.
According to the study, Melbourne has 597 mapped running trails, low air pollution with an annual PM2.5 level of 4.8 and a safety score of 55.9. It also has 21 running events and 17 marathons and half-marathons, plus more than 400 searches for "running club" per 100,000 residents. And, of course, there's the actual running. Melbourne has the Tan, the Capital City Trail, the Yarra trails and a whole heap of leafy parks and waterfront paths, meaning you can swap the treadmill for something considerably more scenic without having to leave the city.
Melbourne's biggest rival in the rankings is, unsurprisingly, Sydney. The Harbour City came in second place globally, scoring 53.91. Sydney actually has more mapped running trails than Melbourne – 605 in total – as well as 20 running events and an average of 8.5 hours of sunshine a day. Its coastal paths, harbour routes and parklands certainly make a strong case for the title, but Melbs edged ahead thanks to its stronger all-round performance. According to Compare the Market, Sydney's higher rainfall and cost of living were among the factors that prevented it from taking the top spot.
Nationally, Australia really shined. Four Australian cities made the global top ten, with Melbourne in first, Sydney in second, Brisbane in fourth and Canberra in ninth.
The top 15 cities for running in the world in 2026:
- Melbourne, Australia – 56.70
- Sydney, Australia – 53.91
- Stockholm, Sweden – 50.25
- Brisbane, Australia – 48.98
- Madrid, Spain – 48.39
- Phoenix, USA – 47.32
- Helsinki, Finland – 47.28
- Los Angeles, USA – 46.65
- Canberra, Australia – 46.53
- Valencia, Spain – 46.32
- New York City, USA – 45.92
- Perth, Australia – 44.46
- Lisbon, Portugal – 43.26
- Zurich, Switzerland – 42.31
- Houston, USA – 41.71
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