Soft Power Survey 2016/17

Who has come out on top in our annual Quality of Life Survey? Which cities have made it into our top 25 for the first time? Who has sneaked into the top five – and who has disappeared off the list altogether? The answers to these questions (and much more besides, of course) can be found in our July/August issue.

Finding the measure of a city is as much about the intangibles that light up a community as the infrastructure keeping it going. We've sized up where the balance is best with our annual top 25.

Monocle takes a cinematic look at the top cities in our 2014 Quality of Life Survey. We spotlight Copenhagen at number one, Tokyo as our top Asian city and Vancouver leading the way in North America.

There are few scheduled flights that make more than one stop these days (let alone three) but African Express is making a business and a brand operating one of the last milk runs in civil aviation. Our man in Africa straps into the jump seat for a jaunt around the horn.

Strap in, sit back & settle in: for issue 74 of Monocle magazine we get the world back on track with our Transport Survey – charting rising design stars, new transport hot spots and those setting a course to become the world's new movers and shakers.

We visit the members’ clubs where foreign journalists find a home away from home (and a good supper) in Tokyo, Bangkok and Hong Kong.

We're celebrating Monocle's seventh birthday this month. Since we launched in 2007 we’ve delivered fresh coverage of global affairs, business, culture and design – online, in print and on air. With five bureaux (plus more to come), five shops, two cafés, a radio station and a worldwide network of 34 correspondents, we’ve been busy keeping an eye and an ear on the world.

‘Benvenuto’! It’s Monocle’s Italian special: meet the politicians, designers and manufacturers determined to re-establish their country’s standing on the world stage.

Make issue 70 the starting point for your travel, business and leisure projects this year – our worldwide forecast brings together the people to meet and places to visit to put your 2014 plans into action.

Over the past year Monocle has sent its correspondents across dozens of countries on a giddying array of planes, trains, and automobiles, to gather the very best in cabins, concourses, suites and tables.

For Monocle’s annual winter edition – Alpino – we travel from the Alps to the Catskills in search of Swiss mountain bunkers, slope-style fashion, how to stage a downhill ski race, and business ideas on the up, all in our Eiger-sized resort newspaper.

Find out the new winner in our annual soft-power survey, part of our biggest-ever issue that's hard on the facts and easy on the eye.

From a clifftop crabshack in Portugal to the best coffee in Munich, this is our annual survey of the best brands, hotels and products in the world of travel.