This profile is also available in German: Zürich: Stadtmarke, Positionierung und Reputation
Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland, is known internationally above all as a financial centre and as one of the world’s most liveable cities. Its reputation has been built less through campaigns than through results that show up, year after year, in the international rankings.
This profile looks at how Zurich is positioned, how it is read from outside, and where the two differ, drawing on the major rankings alongside our own coverage of the city and the wider region.
City Brand Strength
Zurich is one of the strongest city brands in Europe. It placed 11th in Brand Finance‘s Global City Index 2024, up four places on the year before, and led the index on governance and sustainability. In Resonance’s World’s Best Cities it sits in the thirties.
Brand Finance’s David Haigh once described Zurich as a “luxury city brand”: less familiar to the general public than London or Paris, but highly regarded by those who know it. That pattern runs through most of the rankings. Where a survey asks people who know the city, Zurich does very well; where it measures broad global presence, it ranks lower.
Economic Position
Zurich ranks around the twenties in the Global Financial Centres Index, and has moved within that range for several years. In the Brand Finance index, it has ranked at or near the top as a city to invest in.
International investment promotion for the wider region is handled by the Greater Zurich Area, a public-private partnership of several cantons, the cities of Zurich and Winterthur and private and academic partners. When we spoke with Sonja Wollkopf Walt, then its CEO, she summed up the positioning as “world-class technology meets Swiss reliability”, and named access to talent as the factor that matters most. She also pointed to the difficulty of marketing a heterogeneous region, from cities to alpine valleys, under one brand.
Appeal to Talent
Zurich has ranked first in Mercer’s Quality of Living ranking, and Oxford Economics found that it had the best quality of life score of any city in its global top ten. Universities such as ETH Zurich and the research sites of international technology companies add to the appeal for skilled people.
The counterpoint is cost. Zurich ranks among the world’s most expensive cities in both Mercer’s and Numbeo’s cost of living comparisons, and housing is the most frequently cited constraint.
Urban Sustainability
Zurich places in the top twenty of IESE’s Cities in Motion Index, with strong results in governance, human capital and mobility, and around 20th in the Arcadis Sustainable Cities Index. Brand Finance’s respondents rated its governance and sustainability higher than those of any other city in the index.
What Stands Out
Zurich’s reputation is unusually well grounded. What the city and its partners say about it, from quality of life to stability, is confirmed by most of the external evidence.
In TPBO’s reading, the more interesting question is one of breadth. Internationally, Zurich is still read mainly through finance and quality of life. The region’s investment promotion has long described a broader proposition built on technology and research. How far that wider picture has travelled beyond specialist audiences is harder to say from public material alone.
Those who know Zurich see it much as it presents itself. Further afield, finance and quality of life come through more readily than technology and research.
Quality of life and stability are claims Zurich shares with several European peers. The combination with technology and research is more its own.
Independent rankings confirm most of what Zurich claims, from quality of living to governance. Cost of living is the main qualification.
Positions are relative to the places in TPBO’s editorial record and based on public material only.
Want the same reading for your own place? Request a free Positioning Check →
From Our Archive
- 2026Who positions the place? A question for Swiss location marketing
- 2026Claude Wagner on the fragility and future of place branding in Switzerland
- 2024Brand Finance Global City Index 2024: reputation leaders and key trends
- 2020Sonja Wollkopf Walt on how the Greater Zurich Area attracts investors and talent
About this profile. We combine the main international rankings, including Brand Finance‘s Global City Index and Resonance’s World’s Best Cities, with our own interviews and reporting. Rankings change every year, so positions are described in broad terms. See the rankings and indices we follow, or explore our other city profiles.