Cairo is one of the least expensive cities in the world, according to the Economist’s Intelligence Unit’s 2019 Worldwide Cost of Living Survey (paywall). The findings are based on the comparative cost of 160 products and services in each location, including housing, transportation, utilities, clothing, private schooling, and domestic help, among others. The nation’s capital was ranked 125 out of 133 global cities ranked on this year’s report, making the cost of living in Cairo more expensive than Karachi in Pakistan, India’s New Delhi, Chennai, and Bangalore, and Almaty in Kazakhstan. Caracas, Venezuela’s capital city, was named the world’s least expensive city to live in — a title previously held by Damascus in Syria.

Geographic trends: The world’s most expensive cities are mostly centered in Europe and Asia, with Singapore, Hong Kong, and Paris tying for the number one spot. Other cities sitting around the top of the ranking include non-EU western European cities, including Switzerland’s Zurich and Geneva, and Denmark’s Copenhagen. On the flipside, many Asian countries also rank among the cheapest cities in the world, alongside a few in South America and Africa.

A low cost of living does not a happy city make: “As Damascus and Caracas show, a growing number of locations are becoming cheaper because of the impact of political or economic disruption. Although South Asia remains structurally cheap, political instability is becoming an increasingly prominent factor in lowering the relative cost of living. This means that there is a considerable element of risk in some of the world’s cheapest cities.