London, which came second overall, proved to be something of an all-rounder.

New York City was voted the world’s favourite city in the largest ever global survey of its kind by Ipsos MORI, covering 18,147 people in 24 countries.

In was followed in the overall rankings by London, Paris, Abu Dhabi and Sydney.

Respondents chose from a list of 48 major cities and asked which ones were the best to do business in, which were best to live in and which people most wanted to visit. Each city was given an overall score based on the sum of responses across all three categories.

The individual winners of each category were: New York (Best place to do business), Zurich (Best place to live) and Paris (Best place to visit).

New York and London were the only two cities to make the top five in every category.

London also emerged as “Europe’s capital” when the pollsters looked at how 11 major European nations rated the continent’s big cities. It secured top place overall, and was outright winner on best place to do business.

But the British capital achieved relatively weak scores from China. The online Chinese public place it ninth as a city to do business (they rated New York first). London came in seventh as a place to visit, with Paris being the destination of choice for Chinese consumers.

Paris was the clear winner as the world’s favourite place to visit, whether respondents were from Argentina, Australia or Canada. But Paris fell down on its reputation as somewhere to do business, with even the French only ranking it as fifth.

In Italy, Rome fared little better – in ninth place overall. Italians showed an interest in living in Zurich, Berlin and Sydney.

World’s favourite cities

1. New York
2. London
3. Paris
4. Abu Dhabi
5. Sydney

Best city to live

1. Zurich
2. Sydney
3. London
4. Paris
5. New York

Best city to do business

1. New York
2. Abu Dhabi
3. Hong Kong
4. Tokyo
5. London

Best city to visit

1. Paris
2. New York
3. Rome
4. London
5. Sydney