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Topics · Country Index 2026

Every country, topic by topic

18 subjects, from governance & institutions to people & population, of which 16 place countries in the Country Index 2026. A few key statistics decide each standing — 61 in all — and every other statistic under a topic is published beside them as context.

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Placed first on each topic

01The subjects

18 topics

Each with the three countries placed highest. The ticks on a plate are the topic’s key statistics, the only ones that decide its standing; “statistics” counts everything published under the topic, keys included.

02On a map

The world, topic by topic

Choose a topic. Darker is placed higher; hover a country for its position, or select it to open that country’s page on the topic. Below the map, the country placed highest on each continent.

Governance & InstitutionsEvery country on Governance

1st194thNot placed · 30 countries with too few key statisticsNo data

03Why 16, not one

Same country, different stories

The 6 countries whose strongest and weakest topics are furthest apart. Each dot is one topic, placed by position as a share of its own field — best at the left.

The overall ranking

04Records

One record per topic

The country at the extreme of one statistic under each subject, read from its newest edition. Where countries tie at the top, no record is named.

All statistics

05How they relate

Topics that travel together

If a country places high on one subject, does it on another? Each pair is compared over the countries placed on both, by rank correlation: 1 means the two lists run in the same order, 0 that they are unrelated. Across all 120 pairs of the 16 topics, these agree most and least.

Move together most

  1. Health & WellbeingDevelopment & Human Capital

    Countries place very similarly on both. (rank correlation 0.92, across 193 countries placed on both)

  2. Economy & InnovationDevelopment & Human Capital

    Countries place very similarly on both. (rank correlation 0.90, across 175 countries placed on both)

  3. Economy & InnovationHealth & Wellbeing

    Countries place very similarly on both. (rank correlation 0.87, across 175 countries placed on both)

Move together least

  1. Health & WellbeingEnvironment & Sustainability

    Countries placed high on one tend to place low on the other. (rank correlation -0.61, across 184 countries placed on both)

  2. Environment & SustainabilityPoverty & Inequality

    Countries placed high on one tend to place low on the other. (rank correlation -0.61, across 154 countries placed on both)

  3. Development & Human CapitalEnvironment & Sustainability

    Countries placed high on one tend to place low on the other. (rank correlation -0.60, across 184 countries placed on both)

06Analysis

Charts and analysis, by topic

All charts

07Method

How a topic standing is made

Four steps, the same for every topic. Each topic page shows its own working in full.

  1. 1

    A few keys

    Each topic has a handful of key statistics, each measuring something the others do not. Every other statistic under the topic is published as context and has no vote.

  2. 2

    A place in each field

    Every country’s published value becomes its place within that key’s own list, counted as a share of the list — so 22nd of 44 and 108th of 215 read as the same showing.

  3. 3

    One vote each

    The shares are averaged with no key weighted above another. A country needs readings on at least half of a topic’s keys to be placed.

  4. 4

    A position, not a score

    Countries are put in order by that average, and only the order is published: a position and the size of its field. The average itself is never printed.

What is a topic standing?

A country’s place on one subject — governance, health, work and so on — in the Country Index 2026. It is built from a few key statistics per topic, each turned into a place within its own field before they are averaged, and it is published as a position with the size of its field, never as a score.

How many topics are there, and how many place countries?

18 topics, drawn from 430 statistics. 16 of them place countries this edition, using 61 key statistics between them. The others publish their statistics and say why they cannot place anyone yet.

Why do most statistics on a topic have no vote?

If every statistic voted, importing five more of one kind would quietly change what a topic measures. A handful of keys, each admitted by tests re-run every edition, keep the standing about the subject rather than about whatever was imported most.

How does a topic standing relate to the Country Index?

The Country Index averages a country’s topic standings, one vote per topic. A country can place very differently on one topic than overall, and the topic pages list the countries where the gap is widest.

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