The Burrow
Dec 18, 2024
We all want the best for our feline friends. From comfort to feline health care, where we live can be a big factor in the happiness of our cats.
As experts in maintaining your animal’s health with regular vet visits through pet insurance, we wanted to see which cities across the world are ideal for cat lovers and their feline friends.
To do this, we looked at 59 cities across 28 countries and indexed them per capita against a variety of different metrics, such as the number of vets and average dwelling area. These factors were then indexed against each other, and each city received a score between zero and 10 with 10 being the best.
Here’s what we found.
Coming in as top spot on our list is Warsaw, Poland, scoring an 8.9 out of a possible 10. Warsaw scored exceptionally highly across almost all areas, with its’ weakest metric being an above average home dwelling area. The Polish capital led the index with the highest amount of cat boarding services and cat cafés per 100,000 metro population of any city in the index (2.4 and 0.3 respectively). Warsaw landed second for veterinarians per capita, with 13.9 per 100,000 metro population.
The cat-friendly city also placed tied second in cat ownership with Auckland, with 41% of households housing at least one feline friend. Holding Warsaw back was its’ average dwelling space at 131sqm, the smallest of any city in the top five.
Regardless, the great accessibility to cat services as well the high rate of cat ownership make Warsaw an excellent city to live for any cat lovers.
Joining us from the southern hemisphere in the second spot of the index is Auckland, New Zealand. Similar to Warsaw, Auckland saw above average scores across the board. Auckland landed in second for both average dwelling size (202sqm) and for household cat ownership rate (41%).
In addition, Auckland scored highly with cat cafés per capita at 0.3 per 100,000 metro population. The city’s veterinarians and cat boarding services rankings were both in the double digits, with veterinarians per capita placing 15th and cat boarding services per capita 12th (9.3 and 1.6 per 100,000 metro population, respectively).
Overall, Auckland shines as a great choice for cat lovers, with above average accessibility to cat-related services and large housing.
Third on our list is the capital of Australia’s sunshine state, Brisbane. Brisbane landed at the top of the index for average dwelling size, just edging out over Auckland with a size of 214sqm.
Brisbane also performed well above average for both veterinarians and cat boarding services, placing 17th in veterinarians with 8.9 per 100,000 metro population, and fourth for cat boarding services with 2.2 per 100,000 metro population.
The river city was weaker in the other metrics – especially pet stores, cat cafés and cat ownership. In terms of pet stores, Brisbane placed just above average at 21st place with 2.1 pet stores per 100,000 metro population. The same can be said for cat cafés, where Brisbane placed 19th at a rate of only 0.1 per 100,000.
Regardless, the feline medical accessibility and spacious dwellings are a dream for any cat lover.
| Per 100,000 Metro Population | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City | Vets | Cat Boarding Services | Pet Stores | Cat Cafés | Cat Ownership | Average Dwelling Size (sqm) | Index Total |
| Warsaw, Poland | 13.9 | 2.4 | 2.6 | 0.3 | 41% | 131 | 8.88 |
| Auckland, New Zealand | 9.3 | 1.6 | 2.5 | 0.3 | 41% | 202 | 8.73 |
| Brisbane, Australia | 8.9 | 2.2 | 2.1 | 0.1 | 33% | 214 | 7.87 |
| Calgary, Canada | 10.2 | 1.7 | 5.8 | 0.1 | 40% | 181 | 7.79 |
| Edmonton, Canada | 9.6 | 1.5 | 4.0 | 0.1 | 40% | 181 | 7.61 |
| Ottawa-Gatineau, Canada | 11.0 | 2.3 | 3.4 | 0.0 | 40% | 181 | 7.09 |
| Perth, Australia | 9.8 | 2.0 | 2.2 | 0.0 | 33% | 214 | 6.92 |
| Vancouver, Canada | 6.1 | 0.8 | 2.9 | 0.1 | 40% | 181 | 6.87 |
| Sydney, Australia | 4.1 | 1.5 | 1.2 | 0.1 | 33% | 214 | 6.83 |
To view the full dataset, click here.
So why do Australian and Canadian cities dominate the index? Many of these cities performed well across the board, with Australia’s Brisbane and Perth, and Canada’s Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa-Gatineau and Vancouver offering far above average accessibility to cat services, including vets, cat boarding and pet stores.
This isn’t the case for each city from these countries, though. Sydney and Melbourne’s accessibility was far lower per capita than its counterparts. As well, Canada’s Toronto and Vancouver suffered from the same thing.
Overall, each of these countries benefit from above average cat ownership rates as well as excellent average dwelling areas, leading to the cities’ success in the index.
Compare the Market’s Executive General Manager of General Insurance, Adrian Taylor, notes the importance of considering pet insurance.
“Whether you’re a cat or a dog person, pet insurance may help cover accidents or illnesses your little friends may encounter.
“Depending on the level and type of pet insurance cover, this type of insurance can help you pay expensive vet bills if your pet needs care.
“Keep in mind that pet insurance does not always cover your pet for pre-existing medical conditions, so it’s important to insure your pets as early as you can and understand what your policy covers.
“Ultimately, your cat’s wellbeing and happiness is influenced the most by how well they’re cared for in their home rather than where their home is.”
Always read the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) and Target Market Determination (TMD) to check for the inclusions, limits and restrictions before purchasing to make sure the product is suitable.
To rank the 59 cities, we gathered six data points for each one. For each of these data points, the cities received a score between 0 and 10 based on how they compared to each other, with 0 being the ‘worst’ performer and 10 being the ‘best’. These six scores between 0 and 10 were then averaged together to create an index score for each city.
The metrics “Vets”, “Cat Boarding Services”, “Pet Stores” and “Cat Cafés” were placed against the cities’ metro population in order to find a per capita number of 100,000.
Metro population figures used to generate per capita numbers were sourced from Macrotrends.