:: Four cities in Saudi Arabia – Dammam, Jeddah, Alkhobar and Riyadh – have become ‘more affordable’ this year, according to online database site Numbeo.

In its mid-year cost of living of assessment of 511 cities, the website ranked Dammam 344th in the list; Jeddah at 347th; Alkhobar at 353rd and Riyadh at 361st, respectively. Earlier this year, Dammam was ranked at 211th; Jeddah at 330rd; Alkhobar at 345th and Riyadh at 347th.

The higher a city’s ranking in the website’s Cost of Living Index – which excludes rent – indicates more affordability in terms of consumer good prices, including groceries, restaurants, transportation and utilities.

The index uses New York City as a bellwether for the rankings, which means if a city has a Cost of Living Index of 120, it is estimated to be 20 percent more expensive than New York, excluding the rent.

On the other hand, a city with a Cost of Living Index of 70 means it is 30 per cent cheaper to live in New York, discounting rentals.

Eight Indian cities were among the cheapest places to live, with Thiruvananthapuram taking the 511th spot; Mangalore at 510th; Coimbatore at 508th; Bhubaneswar at 507th; Kochi at 506th; Visakhapatnam at 505th; Mysore at 503rd and Hyderabad at 502nd.

Two Egyptian cities Alexandria (at 509th) and Cairo (at 504th) were also in the top ten affordable cities to live.

On the other side of the spectrum, Zurich in Switzerland was ranked as the world’s most expensive city, followed by Hamilton in Bermuda, and Zug in Switzerland.

The Alpine country’s reputation as a hotspot only for the world’s richest was cemented with six other Swiss cities closely lumped as least affordable addresses to live in: Geneva at 4th; Basel at 5th; Bern at 6th; Lausanne at 7th and Lugano at 9th. Two other European cities rounded the list with Reykjavik in Iceland claiming the eighth spot and Stavanger in Norway closing the top ten list.