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Augsburg in 4th place: That's how happy we are compared to Munich!
Munich falls to 27th place in the Happiness Atlas 2025. Augsburg takes fourth place as the happiest city in Bavaria.
Augsburg in 4th place: That's how happy we are compared to Munich!
There is currently a lot to be happy about in Bavaria, because according to the latest “Happiness Atlas” from the South German Class Lottery (SKL), the residents of Augsburg are the happiest in the region. In the 2025 city ranking, Augsburg has moved to an excellent fourth place among the 40 largest cities in Germany, thereby surpassing its own ranking from the previous year. Munich, on the other hand, has lost a lot with 27th place, while Nuremberg is only in 36th place. She has that Mercury held.
What happens next with the numbers? Augsburg achieved a happiness index of 7.33 points - not bad considering that only Kassel (7.44) and Krefeld (7.39) are ahead. So it turns out that the south curve has a lot to thank for life satisfaction. In comparison, Munich is stagnating with 6.84 points and therefore has 12.5 percent of dissatisfied citizens, which is quite significant.
Happiness in the provinces
What makes Augsburg so special? The city not only stands out for its high level of life satisfaction, but also for its low crime rate. Only Mainz has fewer home break-ins. Health care is good and distances to doctors and shopping opportunities are short. Despite some challenges, such as declining construction activity and long commutes to work, the proportion of dissatisfied people remains the lowest in Germany at just 1.8 percent. However, the built environment could be optimized for future developments as there is a lack of recreational areas such as Augsburger Allgemeine reported.
In order to express happiness in more than just numbers, let's take a look at the living conditions of the people in Augsburg. The high proportion of single-person households (57.5 percent) could be linked to social isolation, but the people of Augsburg still think predominantly positively about their living situation. The only unpleasant figures are the commuting distances, which are becoming a burden for many.
The big cities in comparison
The decline in life satisfaction in large cities is not an isolated case. Even in Munich, Frankfurt or Berlin, the quality of life has not increased in recent years. It is often smaller cities that are ahead. This is shown by current surveys, in which life satisfaction tends to be lower in large cities. For the city ranking, a total of 23,468 people between the ages of 16 and 78 were allowed to express their attitude to quality of life and satisfaction between January 2022 and April 2025, as noted by the Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy. Bernd Raffelhüschen from the University of Freiburg emphasizes that in large cities the distribution of satisfaction is crucial for happiness in life.
The result? While cities like Kassel (7.44), Düsseldorf (7.36) and Augsburg (7.33) rank high in terms of satisfaction, large cities like Munich (27th place, 6.84) or Nuremberg (36th place, 6.62) face a considerable challenge: the jump to happier cities could require profound changes in urban development in order to promote a better quality of life.
In summary, the SKL's happiness atlas shows that the small, courageous people in the big cities are in focus and the innocent big city dwellers like Munich and Nuremberg are losing ground in comparison. A trend that could be of crucial importance for Bavarian living environments. If you want enjoyment and well-being in the future, you should perhaps look to Augsburg - happiness has found a home there while the big cities are still looking.