The fact that Germany is a great country to live in is known all over the world. So much so that studies and surveys repeatedly point to the high quality of life that prevails here. With this in mind, the latest news is a ranking by the American company U.S. News & World Report of the “best countries” in the world. And unsurprisingly, Germany is right at the top.
The search for the best countries
This ranking is based on a survey of more than 17,000 people from all over the world – most of them from the USA, however. To conduct this survey, researchers at U.S. News & World Report devised a set of 76 country attributes that “can be used to describe a country and are also relevant to the success of a modern nation”. Participants in the study were asked to rate how closely they associate an attribute with a nation.
Each country was rated on the basis of each of these attributes. The researchers then grouped them into 10 sub-rankings, which were included in the ranking of the best countries: Adventure, Agility, Cultural Influence, Entrepreneurship, Heritage, Relocation, Openness to Business, Power, Social Purpose and Quality of Life. Other rankings, such as the ‘best countries for adventure’, have only considered some of these criteria.
However, these categories do not carry the same weight when it comes to determining the ‘best countries’. Subcategories that had a stronger relationship with wealth were weighted more heavily, and all weights were standardized to a total of 100.
The best and friendliest country
All in all, the results of the survey show that it is not only the hard facts – such as prosperity – that speak in favor of Germany, but also people’s beliefs. Our country is in fourth place in the overall ranking of “best countries”. Only Canada and Japan rank higher. From this we can conclude that our country is held in high esteem in the USA – at least in the eyes of a digital media company with a reach of over 40 million people.