U.S. News released “The 25 Best Countries in the World” for 2023, and the United States of America made it into the top five!
Following not far behind Switzerland in the number one spot, the United States claimed fifth place. Though we dropped one ranking from 2022, when you’re being compared to countries across the world, fifth place is not too shabby.
This is the eighth Best Countries rankings released by U.S. News. WPP and its proprietary BAV brand analytics tool, along with professor David Reibstein from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania are responsible for the study and model used to score each nation.
The 2023 study surveyed more than 17,000 global citizen from 87 countries to reach its conclusions. 73 country attributes impacted the ranking, broken down into 10 thematic subrankings: adventure, agility, cultural influence, entrepreneurship, heritage, movers, open for business, power, quality of life and social purpose.
According to U.S. News, the 87 countries that made the cut had to qualify with the below criteria:
- Top 100 countries in terms of gross domestic product in any year from 2017 to 2021, based on World Bank data.
- Top 100 countries in terms of foreign direct investment inflows in any year from 2017 to 2021, based on World Bank data.
- Top 100 countries in terms of international tourism receipts or tourism arrivals in any year from 2017 to 2021, based on World Bank data.
- Top 150 countries in the U.N.’s Human Development Index in any year from 2017 to 2021.
Of the 10 subrankings, the United States ranked number one in entrepreneurship, power and agility. Overall, the United States got a score of 96.4, 3.6 points less than the number one country, Switzerland. You can get a more in depth look at the analysis of our country here.
Canada came in second behind Switzerland, followed by Sweden and Australia taking third and fourth place. Portugal came in at the bottom of the ranking at number 25.
See the entire ranking here.