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Augsburg: The happiest city in Bavaria – Munich is slipping!
Kassel will lead the satisfaction ranking of German cities in 2025, followed by Krefeld and Düsseldorf. Learn more!
Augsburg: The happiest city in Bavaria – Munich is slipping!
The topic of life satisfaction is once again at the top of the agenda in Bavaria. According to the current “Happiness Atlas” from the South German Class Lottery (SKL), the people of Augsburg are the happiest citizens of the Free State and secured fourth place among the 40 largest cities in Germany in this year’s city ranking. While Augsburg boasts a happiness index of 7.33 points, Munich falls to 27th place with just 6.84 points, dropping three places compared to the previous year. The competition for well-being is particularly extreme this year, as Nuremberg has also lost quality of life and has slipped from 33rd place to 36th place.
The champagne-crazy baker from Augsburg can really do a good business here, because the city not only scores points when it comes to lucky numbers, but also with its low crime rate and low school dropout rate. Only in Mainz are there fewer burglaries. These positive aspects can pay off greatly in everyday life. Augsburg are happier with their lives than the objective statistics would suggest, which shows that a number of things are going well in the midfield.
Life satisfaction in comparison
The distance to the other larger cities is a clear sign. Kassel is at the top of this ranking with a happiness index of 7.44 points, followed by Krefeld (7.39) and Düsseldorf (7.36). The survey, conducted between January 2022 and April 2025, also shows that smaller cities often have higher levels of life satisfaction compared to their larger counterparts. This is also confirmed by the data collected: only two of the ten largest German cities are in the top ten, namely Düsseldorf and Hamburg.
In contrast, in Munich there are 12.5% dissatisfied citizens, while in Augsburg only 1.8% are of this opinion. What is interesting is the trend that the difference in life satisfaction between cities is becoming ever larger. While Kassel and Rostock now have a difference of 1.36 points, Augsburg has actually improved compared to the previous year, while large cities such as Frankfurt am Main and Berlin are in the bottom third of the ranking.
Positive developments
Despite the falling ranks, the survey shows a positive trend: life satisfaction in major German cities has increased by 0.13 points. This could also be due to the effects of the corona pandemic, the data from which is now included in the ranking. However, it now remains to be seen how Munich and Nuremberg will respond to these challenges in the coming years. The fact is: such a detailed view of quality of life and subjective life satisfaction, as discussed by Bernd Raffelhüschen from the University of Freiburg, is likely to be of great importance for urban development in the future.
Overall, it can be said that the 2025 city ranking has both positive and negative surprises in store and once again impressively shows where the feeling of happiness is at home in Germany. While Augsburg is shining, Munich still has some catching up to do.
For more insights and details on the results, see reports from Mercury, Augsburger Allgemeine as well as in the multi-year report from SKL Happiness Atlas.