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Best places to live in Greece with every factor weighted equally
The ranking at the top of this page starts with all 12 factors at the same weight. On that footing, these 15 of the 69 places score highest; the number beside each is its match score out of 100. Treat the list as a starting point, not a verdict: raise the factors you care about and the order changes. Select a place to open its full breakdown.
- 173Strongest on restaurants and bars (100), cultural scene (100) and walkability (99). Weakest on access to nature (49). Restaurants and bars: the average resident has 160 restaurants, cafes and bars within 1 km.
- 272Strongest on international community (100), healthcare (100) and restaurants and bars (100). Weakest on housing cost (0). International community: 20.8% of residents do not hold Greek citizenship (Greek average 7.3%).
- 371Strongest on healthcare (100), international schools (100) and restaurants and bars (97). Weakest on housing cost (0). Healthcare: 35 hospitals within 15 km.
- 469Strongest on international community (100), restaurants and bars (100) and walkability (100). Weakest on housing cost (0). International community: 12.1% of residents do not hold Greek citizenship (Greek average 7.3%).
- 560Strongest on international schools (100), walkability (99) and healthcare (97). Weakest on housing cost (0). International schools: 15 within 25 km.
- 660Strongest on walkability (100), airport access (99) and international schools (75). Weakest on international community (17). Walkability: the average resident can walk to 4.0 of 4 daily needs.
- 760Strongest on walkability (100), international schools (100) and healthcare (96). Weakest on housing cost (0). Walkability: the average resident can walk to 4.0 of 4 daily needs.
- 8(Piraeus)60Strongest on restaurants and bars (100), cultural scene (100) and international schools (100). Weakest on housing cost (0). Restaurants and bars: the average resident has 105 restaurants, cafes and bars within 1 km.
- 959Strongest on international schools (100), healthcare (98) and restaurants and bars (82). Weakest on housing cost (0). International schools: 15 within 25 km.
- 1057Strongest on healthcare (100), international schools (100) and walkability (97). Weakest on housing cost (0). Healthcare: 35 hospitals within 15 km.
- 1157Strongest on walkability (100), international schools (100) and healthcare (98). Weakest on housing cost (0). Walkability: the average resident can walk to 4.0 of 4 daily needs.
- 1257Strongest on access to nature (99), walkability (76) and international schools (75). Weakest on bike friendliness (6). Access to nature: 28.1% of the land within 1 km of homes is park, forest or open nature. Citywide: 53.5%.
- 1357Strongest on international schools (100), healthcare (94) and public transit (89). Weakest on housing cost (0). International schools: 15 within 25 km.
- 1457Strongest on access to nature (87), walkability (76) and international schools (75). Weakest on bike friendliness (5). Access to nature: 18.3% of the land within 1 km of homes is park, forest or open nature. Citywide: 39.2%.
- 1557Strongest on healthcare (100), international schools (100) and access to nature (96). Weakest on bike friendliness (0). Healthcare: 33 hospitals within 15 km.
Best places in Greece by priority
Each starting point is a preset in the tool above. It raises the factors named and lowers a few others. The five highest-scoring places under each:
Family raises safety and international schools to 5, and access to nature and healthcare to 4.
- Athens, Attiki: 73
- Zografos, Attiki: 73
- Kallithea, Attiki: 69
- Galatsi, Attiki: 68
- Thessaloniki, Kentriki Makedonia: 68
Budget first raises housing cost to 5, and safety, bike friendliness, healthcare, public transit and walkability to 4.
- Thessaloniki, Kentriki Makedonia: 69
- Larissa, Thessalia: 59
- Kalamaria, Kentriki Makedonia: 57
- Ioannina, Ipeiros: 56
- Volos, Thessalia: 56
Car-free raises bike friendliness, public transit and walkability to 5.
- Kallithea, Attiki: 74
- Zografos, Attiki: 74
- Thessaloniki, Kentriki Makedonia: 73
- Nea Smyrni, Attiki: 69
- Athens, Attiki: 67
Frequent flyer raises airport access to 5, and international community, public transit, restaurants and bars and cultural scene to 4.
- Athens, Attiki: 84
- Thessaloniki, Kentriki Makedonia: 84
- Zografos, Attiki: 72
- Kallithea, Attiki: 71
- Kalamaria, Kentriki Makedonia: 69
Questions about where to live in Greece
What is the best place to live in Greece?
It depends on what you need from a place, which is why the Greece City Finder re-ranks as you set your priorities. With all 12 factors weighted equally, Thessaloniki, Athens and Zografos score highest of the 69 places compared. Change the starting point and the answer changes: Family puts Athens and Zografos level at the top, Budget first puts Thessaloniki first, Car-free puts Kallithea and Zografos level at the top and Frequent flyer puts Athens and Thessaloniki level at the top.
What are the best places to live in Greece for families?
The Family starting point raises safety and international schools to 5, and access to nature and healthcare to 4. With it, Athens, Zografos, Kallithea, Galatsi and Thessaloniki score highest.
Which places in Greece are easiest to live in without a car?
The Car-free starting point raises bike friendliness, public transit and walkability to 5. With it, Kallithea, Zografos, Thessaloniki, Nea Smyrni and Athens score highest.
Where is housing most affordable in Greece?
On the housing cost factor, the highest scores go to Ioannina, Chalkida, Kozani, Lamia and Mytilini (Mytilene). Ioannina: €216 a month in rent per renting household in the region, 2024 (Greek average €370).
Which places in Greece score highest for safety?
On the safety factor, the highest scores go to Aghios Nikolaos, Kozani, Alexandroupoli, Chios and Volos. Aghios Nikolaos: 28.3 violent crimes and 25.7 burglaries per 100,000 residents (Greek average 99.3 and 104.3). Figure for the police directorate's area. The safety score is built from official crime figures. A low score means more recorded crime than other places on this list, not that a place is unsafe; How the scores work explains the measure.
Where does the data come from?
The Greece City Finder compares 69 places on 12 factors using official statistics and open data. The figure behind every score is shown beside it, and each source is listed under How the scores work and at the foot of this page. The methodology sets out how every city finder turns figures into scores.
Does the City Finder tell me whether I can move to Greece?
No. It is an informational research tool that compares places using general statistics. It does not assess eligibility for any visa, residence permit or citizenship, and nothing in it is legal, immigration, tax or financial advice. For visa and residence routes, see Move Me To EU.
About the Greece City Finder
The Greece City Finder compares 69 places across Greece on 12 factors: housing cost, safety, bike friendliness, access to nature, international community, healthcare, airport access, public transit, restaurants and bars, cultural scene, walkability and international schools. Every factor starts at the same weight. Raise the ones you care about, lower or switch off the ones you don't, and the ranking and map re-sort as you go. You can shortlist places, compare them side by side, and copy a link that reopens your exact setup. Athens, Thessaloniki, Patra, Iraklio (Crete) and Pireas open up into their neighborhoods.
It is built for Americans weighing a move to Greece, whether through citizenship by descent, a visa or another route, who want to turn a long list of places into a shortlist worth visiting. Athens, Thessaloniki and Patra (Patras) are on the list, and so are smaller places that rarely make the usual rankings. Scores are built from official statistics and open data, the figure behind each score is shown next to it, and the sources are listed at the foot of this page. The methodology explains how a figure becomes a score.
For visa and residence routes, see Move Me To EU, Karte Global's visa and relocation practice. Considering more than one country? Browse every city finder, or compare places across the whole EU on one scale in the EU City Finder.
How the scores work
Each figure is turned into a 0 to 100 score. Most factors are scored half by comparison and half on a fixed scale. The comparison half ranks the places against each other: the weakest twentieth score 0 and the strongest twentieth score 100. The fixed half measures each place from zero up to the level of the strongest, so a place is not marked zero merely for coming last on a list of good options. Housing cost and journey times have no natural zero and are scored by comparison only. Public transit is already a percentage of residents and is used as it stands, and cycling is scored on a fixed scale (see the table). Safety has its own scale, described below and in the table.
Places are compared with the other places on this list. Neighborhoods are compared only with other neighborhoods of the same city, so a neighborhood score of 80 in Athens and 80 in Thessaloniki are not the same thing. A score is a comparison, not a grade, and the figure behind every score is shown next to it.
Your overall match is not a flat average. Weights are squared, so a factor at 5 counts nearly three times as much as one at 3. The result is stretched so that strong matches separate from middling ones. A place that excels on something you rated 4 or 5 earns a small bonus, shown as "strong fit"; one that does badly on it takes a penalty, shown as "weak fit". Where a place has no figure for a factor, that factor is left out of its match and the others carry the weight.
Badges: Measured a published official statistic or survey result. Derived calculated by us from published data. Editorial written or judged by us: only the short descriptive notes, which never affect a score. Planned not in the score yet.
Reading the safety score. Violent crime counts twice as much as burglary. Half of the score ranks the places on this list against each other, so the places with the most recorded violence and burglary get little for that half however safe they are by international standards. The other half is absolute, on a fixed scale that does not depend on the other places: no recorded violent crime or burglary would score 100, and the Greek average scores 76. A low score means "more recorded crime than other Greek places", not "unsafe". Across Greece the police recorded 99.3 violent crimes (intentional bodily harm, homicide, rape and robbery, including attempts) and 104.3 burglaries per 100,000 residents in 2025. Crime is counted where it happens, so places that draw visitors and nightlife record more per resident than quieter ones. The Hellenic Police publish these figures by police directorate, which mostly covers a former prefecture. All places in Attica share one figure, and all places around Thessaloniki share another, because the yearbook does not say which municipalities each of Attica's police areas covers.
Reading the transit and airport figures. Greek city transit is counted from the operators' own open timetables, for Attica and Thessaloniki only: elsewhere no city bus timetable is published, so those places show no transit or airport figure. Athens metro, ISAP and tram and Thessaloniki's buses are counted on Tuesday 20 October 2026. Athens buses and trolleys are counted on Tuesday 18 August 2026, because the only timetable OASA publishes is its summer one, so Attica's transit figures run on the low side. Thessaloniki's metro and Athens' suburban railway are not in the timetables published on data.gov.gr, so they are not counted. Long-distance trains are not scored: Hellenic Train publishes no open timetable.
Neighborhood view uses the municipal communities of Athens (7), Thessaloniki (5 and Triandria) and Piraeus (5), as mapped in OpenStreetMap, and the municipal units of Patra and Iraklio as ELSTAT records them. In Patra and Iraklio the city's own unit holds most residents. Neighborhood residents in Athens, Thessaloniki and Piraeus, and the share born outside Greece in every neighborhood, are estimated from the 2021 census grid of 1 km squares, so figures near neighborhood edges are approximate. Neighborhood view uses only the factors that can be measured inside a city. Housing cost and safety are not scored for neighborhoods.