It began in August 2002 with a simple, optimistic premise: that civilization was a thing to be measured, like population or GDP. If the UN could measure Human Development, then why couldn’t enRoute measure Human Civilization?

With indices and formulas prepared, our correspondents – wherever possible, locals who knew their cities intimately – started collecting data. For 2.5 years in 24 cities, we stood on street corners getting odd looks and hostile questions as we counted beautiful people in places like Mexico, Hong Kong, Rio, Tokyo and Paris (and less beautiful ones in St. Petersburg, New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago). We took fast taxis (Buenos Aires, Vancouver, Rio, Amsterdam and Hong Kong) and slow ones (Tokyo, London, Mumbai, Chicago and Paris). We found lively streets in places like Berlin, Moscow and Rome and sampled local fare, like the Parisian croissant (our golden standard), Brazilian pastelzinhos, Dutch frites, Russian blinis and good ol’ Tim Hortons’ crullers in Toronto. And everywhere we went, we drank – at least one beer and one soft drink in each city.

Readers responded enthusiastically. One professor at a Canadian university asked to use the Civilization Index in the classroom. A reader in São Paulo wrote to contradict our findings, saying that people in Rio were actually very ugly (and when were we coming to São Paulo, anyway?). A Toronto fan wrote, threatening us with the Ontario Human Rights Commission for our unblinking measurement of the city’s many “failings.”

Finally, we are ready to present the complete rankings, summarizing what we’ve learned about the world’s great (and not so great) cities.