The2019 Best Countries rankings,formed in partnership with BAV Group, a unit of global marketing communications company VMLY&R, and theWharton Schoolof the University of Pennsylvania, are based on a study that surveyed more than 20,000 global citizens from four regions to assess perceptions of 80 countries on 75 different metrics. TheQuality of Life subrankingis based on an equally weighted average of scores from nine country attributes that relate to quality of life in a country: affordable, a good job market, economically stable, family friendly, income equality, politically stable, safe, well-developed public education system andwell-developed public health system. The Quality of Life subranking score had a 17 percent weight in the overall Best Countries ranking.
People consistently view a small group of nations as best providing for their citizens. For the fourth consecutive year,Canadaranks No. 1 overall for providing a good quality of life. Survey respondents view the North American country as No. 1 for both being politically stable and having a well-developed public education system, and No. 2 for having a good job market, a perceptionsupported by independent research.The North American country is seen as possessing the fifth best well-developed public health care system. In fact, Canada is rated in the top 10 in all but one of the nine attributes, affordability, where Asian countries dominate.
Countries perceived to provide a lower quality of life perform most poorly in areas concerning personal safety and economic opportunity.Iraq, followed byIran,Lebanon,Jordan, andAngolaare at the bottom of the quality of life ranking. Iraq finishes last in the survey for being friendly tofamilies.
For the second year in a row, theUnited Statesranks No. 17 overall by survey respondents for providing a good quality of life. Its highest ranking is for its job market, where it ranks first. Its lowest ranking came in affordability, where survey responses placed it No. 56.
Canada takes up about two-fifths of the North American continent, making it the second-largest country in the world afterRussia. The country is sparsely populated, with most of its 35.5 million residents living within 125 miles of the U.S. border. Canada’s expansive wilderness to the north plays a large role in Canadian identity, as does the country’s reputation of welcoming immigrants.
The Kingdom of Sweden, flanked by Norway to the west and the Baltic Sea to the east, expands across much of the Scandinavian Peninsula and is one of the largest countries in the European Union by land mass. Capital city Stockholm was claimed in the 16th century, and border disputes through the Middle Ages established the modern-day nation.
The Kingdom of Denmark emerged in the 10th century and includes two North Atlantic island nations, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Along with Sweden and Norway, it forms Scandinavia, a cultural region in Northern Europe.
The Kingdom of Norway is the westernmost country in theScandinavian peninsula, made up mostly of mountainous terrain. Nearly all ofits populationlives in the south, surrounding the capital, Oslo. Norway’s coastline is made up of thousands of miles of fjords, bays and island shores. The Norwegians developed a maritime culture, and were active throughout the Viking era, establishing settlements in Iceland and Greenland.
Switzerland, officially called the Swiss Federation, is a small country in Central Europe made up of 16,000 square miles of glacier-carved Alps, lakes and valleys. It’s one of the world’s wealthiest countries, and has been well-known for centuries for its neutrality.
Geography defines the history and culture of Nordic Finland, one of the most northern-reaching countries in the world. Bordered by Scandinavia,Russia, the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia, Finland and its vast stretches of heavily forested open land acts as a northern gate between West and East.
The Commonwealth of Australia occupies the Australian continent. The country also includes some islands, most notably Tasmania. Indigenous people occupied the land for at least 40,000 years before the first British settlements of the 18th century.
Situated along the fringes of Western Europe, the Netherlands is a coastal lowland freckled with windmills characteristic of its development around the water. Three major European rivers - the Rhine, Meuse and Schelde - run through neighborsGermany and Belgium into the nation’s busy ports.
British and Polynesian influences course through picturesque New Zealand, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean southeast ofAustralia. Early Maori settlers ceded sovereignty to British invaders with the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, and European settlers flooded in. Today, 70 percent of Kiwis, a common term for the people of New Zealand after a native flightless bird, are of European descent. A sense of pride has surged among the Maori, the country’s first settlers who now account for about 14 percent, as homeland grievances become more openly addressed.
Germany, the most populous nation in the European Union, possesses one of the largest economies in the world and has seen its role in the international community grow steadily since reunification. The Central European country borders nine nations, and its landscape varies, from the northern plains that reach to the North and Baltic seas to the Bavarian Alps in the south.
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