Official: London is Europe's best capital

London today emerged as the best European capital city to live in, according to wide-ranging research.

London, the biggest of Europe's cities with a population of 7.2 million, also gets more sun than Paris and less rain than Brussels.

And despite London's reputation in Britain, even the crime rate is relatively low.

Taken as a whole, the analysis of statistics from across the European Union has also confirmed London's place as the only city in Europe able to compete on the world stage with places such as New York and Tokyo.

The results, based on figures from 2001, come from the EU's official statistical body Eurostat which produces the comparison every five years.

They reveal London's population dwarfs that of its competitors standing at double Berlin's 3.4 million, 2.5 times Madrid's three million and 3.5 times Paris's 2.1 million.

In fact there are almost more people living in London than in Rome, Paris, Vienna and Brussels put together.

The capital also boasts a third of its area as green space and has double the number of theatres of Madrid and Berlin.

The size of the capital does mean London's commuters have the longest average journey into work - 43 minutes- - compared to half an hour in Madrid, Berlin and Stockholm.

Londoners also have to cope with having only 0.6 GPs per 1,000 people while almost every other capital can boast two.

Despite this, the capital appears to have good healthcare provision with the lowest mortality rate for the under 65s from heart attacks among the EU's 15 member states.

Although London came out as the second worst capital for car theft - 8.7 such crimes per 1,000 people - overall the city compared well with others for recorded crime.

While Londoners reported 61.9 crimes per 1,000 population the residents of Berlin experienced 168.9 while 146.7 of every 1,000 Parisians were hit.

London was the second worst city for murders but still only has three for every 100,000 people.

Most surprisingly perhaps was London's 4.7 hours of recorded sunshine per day which beat Paris on 4.4 hours and Berlin on 4.1 hours. Athens was best with 7.6 hours.

London was also relatively dry with 163 days of rain a year compared with 246 in Dublin and 199 in Brussels.

Other figures from 1999 also show London is the overall richest city in the European Union, with an economic output 2.4 times the EU average.

Paris trailed in fifth.