Kerry has been ranked 9th in a list of the best counties to live in Ireland.
The Irish Liveability Index looks at factors including scenery, house prices and sunshine, as well as access to amenities and proximity to urban areas.
The Kingdom shared the number 9 spot with Wicklow, ranking number 1 for natural beauty.
Kerry was in the mid table for house prices, in 14th place.
However, it features in the bottom half of the index for sunshine, in 18th place, and proximity to a city, in 21st position.
Waterford was listed as the best county to live in Ireland, followed by Wexford, Donegal, Cork and Clare.
Liveability indices are typically used to compare cities across the world. The Irish liveability index is compiled by a father and son team with backgrounds in physics and mathematical modelling. The information used to compile the index is freely available to the public, and counties are scored on parameters that influence people’s decision to relocate to a particular place. These include property prices, climate, natural amenities and proximity to a city.
In order to assess counties for their natural amenities a model was developed to rank the natural amenity of a particular area using the percentage of each area covered by water and mountains and attributed as urban. The counties were then given an overall ranking based on an average of the scores for each of the four parameters.
