Analysis
What do the numbers show?
4 written pieces, each drawn from the data on this site and dated the day its figures were read. The pages a piece rests on are kept current; the piece itself is not.
Every piece names the editions and pages it is built on, uses the site’s own words for its own orderings — a standing or a position, never a rank the publisher did not print — and is read and signed off by the editor before it is published.
01Newest first
Every piece
4 pieces, dated. Select one to read it.
What the 2026 Country Index shows
Switzerland is placed first of 183 countries, alone, with the four Nordic countries behind it. Europe’s middle country is 26th; Africa’s is 148th. Sixteen subjects vote, 61 published statistics decide them, and 41 countries could not be placed at all.
Why 41 countries could not be ranked in the 2026 Country Index
A country needs a standing on 12 of the 16 voting subjects to be placed. Three — Dominica, North Korea and Saint Kitts and Nevis — hold 10. Twenty-four territories and microstates hold five or fewer, and four hold none. What the data lacks, group by group.
Environment & Sustainability
Out of step: the countries far stronger on one subject than overall
South Sudan is 183rd of 183 overall and 9th of 186 on Environment. South Korea is 13th overall and 170th on the same subject. Pakistan is 155th overall and 54th of 198 on Digital. Where a subject standing sits furthest from a country’s overall place, and what the keys behind it measure.
The 26 shared places in the 2026 Country Index, and why the index ties
Fifty-three of the 183 ranked countries share their place with at least one other — Austria and Luxembourg at 6th, Colombia, Ecuador and Indonesia at 86th. The index prints a tie wherever its arithmetic cannot tell two countries apart, and this is the full list.