“People disagree about which country is the best.”

Roughly half of adults across the countries surveyed view the U.S. favorably. The U.S. receives its most favorable rating from Israel, where 83% see it positively... The U.S. receives its least positive assessment in Sweden, where 79% have a negative opinion of the country. More than six-in-ten adults view the U.S. negatively in neighboring Canada and Mexico, as do majorities in Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Turkey.

Gallup’s long-running measures of Americans’ favorable ratings of foreign countries show substantial variation across countries and over time, and also significant partisan differences. For example, Republicans' and Democrats' views of Israel are more divided than ever. The parties also show significant differences in their ratings of Mexico and Ukraine. These data illustrate that people’s evaluations of countries differ by political affiliation and change over time, rather than reflecting a single shared view of which country is best.

In a survey across 25 countries, plenty of people said they aren’t proud of their country – and many of them gave specific reasons why. Overall, only about half of adults across the countries surveyed (median of 51%) say they are proud of their country at least some of the time. In most countries, substantial shares say they are rarely or never proud of their country.

When asked whether the United States is the greatest country in the world, one of the greatest, or not great at all, Americans are divided. In Gallup’s polling over the years, solid majorities have said the U.S. is either the greatest or one of the greatest countries, but significant minorities have taken the view that it is not the greatest, and younger adults in particular are less likely than older adults to say the U.S. is the greatest country in the world.

For the third year in a row, Americans are less satisfied with their personal freedom than the rest of the world, including their peers in other wealthy, market-based economies. In 2024, 72% of Americans said they were satisfied with their freedom to choose what they do with their lives, in line with where this sentiment has been since it plummeted in 2022. Satisfaction with personal freedom varies considerably from country to country, underscoring that people differ in how positively they view conditions in their own countries.

Nationalism is an ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or group interests. It often involves a belief that one’s own nation is superior to other nations in some or all respects. Such beliefs can conflict with one another, as different peoples consider their own country to be the greatest or most deserving of loyalty.

Our study explores how Americans tend to have a distorted understanding of people on the other side of the aisle, what causes it, and why it matters. More than three quarters of Americans believe our differences are not so great that we cannot come together. Yet someone scrolling through a social media news feed, or switching on cable TV or talk radio could be convinced that we’re a country heading towards civil war. This study shows that an important source of this polarization is the false beliefs people have of their political opponents: on issues including climate change, patriotism and how they see their country, Americans significantly misperceive what those on the other side believe.

The 2024 World Happiness Report ranks countries by their average life evaluations. For the seventh consecutive year, Finland ranks as the happiest country in the world. Nevertheless, other indices that focus on different dimensions such as economic competitiveness, human development, or quality of democracy often place other countries at the top, illustrating that there is no single agreed‑upon "best" country.

Switzerland placed first in the U.S. News and World Report Best Countries list for 2023. Canada comes in a close second, moving up from third place last year. The 2023 list measures perceptions about 87 nations chosen because they contribute most to the world’s GDP. More than 17,000 people around the world were asked to evaluate the countries based on 73 attributes ranging from political stability to racial equity to health consciousness. The article notes that different groups of respondents emphasize different attributes, which leads them to favor different countries as the “best.”

A median of 65% of adults across 19 surveyed countries say there are strong or very strong disagreements in their country between people who support different political parties. These perceptions are most widespread among adults in South Korea, the United States, Israel, France and Hungary, where at least seven-in-ten say this. This year, Pew Research Center also asked people internationally whether they think partisan divisions are strong in the United States. Across the 18 non-U.S. countries surveyed, a median of 74% of adults do see conflicts in the U.S.

Americans are deeply divided over whether American culture and way of life has mostly changed for the better (47%) or for the worse (51%) since the 1950s. These competing visions are closely tied to partisan and religious identity and shape how people evaluate the country overall. The data suggest that there is no consensus on whether the United States today represents the best version of itself or the best country compared with others.

A new global Ipsos study, carried out in 27 countries, for the BBC highlights the extent to which people think their society is divided. The study finds that three in four people on average across the 27 countries (76%) think society in their country is divided. Countries that are most concerned about division are Serbia, where most people (93%) say their society is divided, Argentina (92%), Peru and Chile (both 90%).

There are a lot of disagreements on what our nation's priorities should be. However, most Americans believe that our country is on the wrong track. As of Sept. 19, 2022, 63.5% reported that they believe things in the U.S. are generally on the wrong track, even as majorities still express pride in certain aspects of the country. These mixed views underscore that Americans do not have a single, unified view of how good or ‘the best’ their country is.

Best Countries 2026 · Switzerland · Japan · United States · Canada · Australia · Sweden. Switzerland ranked #4 in 2021, moved to #1 in 2022, and maintained its top position into 2023 and 2024 with a score of 100. Canada took first place in 2021, dropped two spots in 2022, took second place in 2023, and placed fourth in 2024. The shifting rankings over time, and the fact that different indices place different countries first, illustrate that there is no single universally agreed-upon “best” country.

The Good Country Index ranks countries on their contribution to the common good of humanity and the planet. In the overall ranking, 1. Finland · 2. Sweden · 3. Germany · 4. Denmark · 5. France. The designers emphasize that the index reflects one particular idea of what makes a country ‘good’ and that other rankings use different criteria and therefore identify different countries as the best, showing that there is no single consensus definition of the ‘best country’.

Rankings of countries by happiness differ depending on the data source and the specific measure of well-being used. The paper shows that while some countries consistently appear near the top of happiness rankings, the exact ordering and the identity of the ‘happiest’ or ‘best’ country can change when alternative indicators or weights are applied.

The top 10 most respected countries in the survey were found to be Canada, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark and the Netherlands. Canada has been on top of the list several times now, including second in 2010 and 2014. With a general feeling of acceptance of all peoples therein, it is no wonder that Canada has been on the top tier every year for each of the six years the list has been compiled. These rankings are based on one particular global reputation survey, while other indices name different countries as the best or most admired.

Many global rankings, such as the U.S. News & World Report Best Countries list or the World Happiness Report, identify a top-ranked country for a given year (for example, Switzerland or Finland). Within each ranking, that country is ‘best’ according to the specific methodology used. However, because each ranking uses different criteria and different populations of respondents, they frequently disagree about which country is number one. This pattern—consensus inside a given index but disagreement between indices and between individuals—illustrates that people disagree about which country is the best.

In this commentary video, the narrator discusses the claim that "America is the greatest country in the world" and then challenges it. They state that this idea is common across classes, races and genders in the U.S., but argue that, when comparing statistics on education, healthcare, inequality and other metrics, the United States is not objectively the best at anything. The video illustrates that even among people who share data about countries, there is open disagreement about which one is truly the greatest.