With the intense and complex competition among major cities throughout the world today, we have developed the Global Power City Index (GPCI) to evaluate and rank these urban centres according to their comprehensive “attractive” power which draws creative individuals and business enterprises from every continent.The GPCI evaluates its target cities in six urban functions: Economy, Research and Development, Cultural Interaction, Liveability, Environment, and Accessibility. Each of the functions comprises multiple indicator groups, which in turn consist of several indicators, with a total of 70 indicators being used in the GPCI. The average indicator scores of the indicator groups are combined to create the function-specific rankings. The comprehensive ranking is then created by totalling the scores of the function-specific rankings.London, New York, Paris and Tokyo retain their hold on the top four places, respectively. Since hosting the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, London in particular has been steadily increasing its score, further widening its lead on #2 New York. In Asia, a widening gap is prominent between mid- and top-rank cities. Singapore (#5) and Hong Kong (#7) make significant gains, while Shanghai (#17) and Beijing (#18) slip in the rankings after exhibiting promising vitality in previous years. There is a surge by North American cities as Los Angeles jumps from #20 to #14, San Francisco from #32 to #21 and Boston from #30 to #23. This is due to the broader economic recovery pushing up their scores in Economy and Liveability.The research results of the GPCI could potentially serve as valuable data to improve our understanding of the challenges faced by cities around the world as well as assist in the formulation of urban policies and corporate strategies.