Study reveals Norway's Trondheim as most expensive city in the world.

A new study examining the top twenty most expensive cities in the world has been released with some perhaps surprising results.

While most of the places hard on the wallet were in Europe, it is Scandinavia where tourists are urged to watch their pennies most closely.

Following a survey of more than 23,000 travellers, carried out by numbero.com, the most expensive city for visitors (i.e. excluding rent) was revealed to be Trondheim in Norway.

This was followed by the city of Stavanger, also in Norway, with Switzerland’s cultural heartland Zurich completing the top three.

Based on 45 goods and services, the cost of living survey, which was carried out at the start of 2012 examined more than 241,000 prices.

The survey used New as the base city for the index and scores 100 points, with all cities compared the base and currency movements measured against US Dollar and Euro.

Tokyo (Japan) scores 135.23 points and is nearly three times as costly as Manila (Philippines) with 47.34 points.

In the 2012, the most expensive cities (excluding rent) were

1. Trondheim, Norway (188.91)
2. Stavanger, Norway (171.32)
3. Zurich, Switzerland (152.84)
4. Oslo, Norway (152.03)
5. Geneva, Switzerland (146.24)
6. Bern, Switzerland (142.44)
7. Lucerne, Switzerland (139.94)
8. Perth, Australia (139.63)
9. Bergen, Norway (138.79)
10. Tokyo, Japan (135.23)
11. Sydney, Australia (132.39)
12. Adelaide, Australia (129.60)
13. Monaco, Monaco (128.15)
14. Copenhagen, Denmark (123.82)
15. Edinburgh, United Kingdom (122.52)
16. Melbourne, Australia (121.53)
17. Dublin, Ireland (119.56)
18. London, United Kingdom (118.52)
19. Arhus, Denmark (115.96)
20. Canberra, Australia (115.89).