Where these prices come from

This page shows where each price on the site comes from. Every figure is listed with the address of its original source so you can check it yourself.

What we measure

Six things per city — bottled water, taxi flag-down fare, a meal at an inexpensive restaurant, one local transport ride, beer and coffee. The things a traveller pays for on day one.

Source grades

Not every price rests on the same kind of evidence. A taxi flag-down fare is set by the authorities, so there is one right number; a cup of coffee differs from shop to shop. So we grade the sources, and figures that come from aggregated data are marked “approx.” on screen.

• A — official published fare
• B — operator's official price
• C — aggregated data

Why the index uses only four items

The city-to-city index uses only water, taxi, meal and coffee. Averaging whatever items happen to exist makes a city with fewer items look cheap — that actually happened with a city that sells no beer.