Well, this isn't much of a surprise: Toronto has been ranked the most expensive city in Canada. The annual Mercer survey, which helps corporations determine compensation packages for employees working around the world, has the local cost of living at 59th of the 214 cities included in the rankings. That puts us six spots ahead of Vancouver, the second costliest city in the country.

Perhaps more newsworthy than Toronto's ranking in the Canadian context is that we moved up 17 spots from last year's rankings, part of which can be chalked up to surging rental prices. That means that it's more expensive to live here than San Francisco and Chicago, similar-sized cities in the U.S.

The report takes into account a wide variety of factors that contribute to cost of living, including accommodation, transportation, food, and entertainment. The highest ranked city in the 2011 survey was Luanda, Angola.

BY THE NUMBERS

The top five:

• Luanda, Angola
• Tokyo, Japan
• N'DJamena, Chad
• Moscow, Russia
• Geneva, Switzerland

Canadian Cities:

• Toronto (59th)
• Vancouver (65th)
• Montreal (79th)
• Calgary (96th)
• Ottawa (114th)

Photo by Brian.Nguyen in the blogTO Flickr pool.