Toronto Named Canada's Most Expensive City

But Hogtown is nowhere near as expensive as Zurich, Moscow, Singapore, or, wait for it ... Luanda, Angola, this year's No. 1.

Toronto is Canada's most expensive city, beating out its ever-growing West Coast rival, Vancouver, according to a Mercer study of the cost of living around the world. The Ontario capital jumped from 76th last year to 59th this year, while Vancouver, which beat out Toronto (if having prohibitive costs for real estate can be considered “beating”) last year with the 75th spot, rose to 65. The strong Canadian dollar contributed to Canadian cities' rise in the rankings, as it makes it more expensive for foreign citizens to live here. Montreal, Calgary, and Ottawa also made the list, with Ottawa being the least expensive of the five. The world's most expensive city is Luanda, the capital of Angola, where a boom in mining has made it next to impossible to find accommodations of any kind. Asian and European mainstays such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Geneva, Moscow, and Zurich all littered the top 10.