For the past seven years, Melbourne reigned supreme in the Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Liveability Index. This year, it lost its crown to Vienna, Austria.

According to ABC News, the diminishing frequency of militant attacks in Western Europe, as well as the low crime rate, helped pushed the Austrian city to the top of the list for 2018.

While Melbourne also witnessed improvements, particularly in the availability of modern music, Vienna still showed stronger index scores. 

"Both cities saw an improvement in their score this year. But Vienna's improvement was a bit more than Melbourne's so it just sneaked over the top to become number one," The Economist Intelligence Unit's Simon Baptist told ABC News.

The cities were ranked according to categories including infrastructure, stability, education, healthcare, culture, and environment. Melbourne maintained its lead on culture and environment, while Vienna topped the stability ranking.

Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp told ABC News that despite losing the top spot in the ranking, the city continues to be one of the best in the world.

"We're a competitive bunch and I know that we're all going to be working hard to make our way back up to number one in the future," he said.

Capp noted that the city will be working on to improve its security, given that issues regarding law and order have dominated the headlines over the past few months.

"I know it's been a big issue in the city recently and [there's been] lots of debate but from the data, we look at we see no change. Melbourne does have a worse ranking for crime than Vienna does, but Melbourne has the same ranking it had last year — it's just that Vienna's has gone down," he added.