The Netherlands topped the annual Good Country Index, which ranks countries across 35 indicators grouped under seven main headings, including science and technology, planet and climate, and prosperity and equality.
All 10 of the areas in the Quality of Life index – which ranks local performance across a range of indicators covering the labour market, the housing market, the environment, education, health and personal well-being – are in the south-east, including Winchester, Chiltern and south Oxfordshire.
The firm Clean-Edge put West Virginia at #50 in its Clean Energy Leadership Index, which ranked states based on 70 technological and policy indicators.
And according to London-based think tank Demos, Sweden leads the Euro-Creativity Index, which ranks countries according to talent, technology, and tolerance--three factors supposed to indicate a country's creative potential.
The index, which ranks countries according to 58 criteria in five main categories, has also provoked its share of controversy.
But its annual Press Freedom Index, which ranks countries from 1 to 179, gets a little ridiculous.
Consider the World Bank's Doing Business index, which ranks countries according to the quality of their regulatory environment for commerce.
Finland came top of the index, which ranked 133 countries on the extent to which they meet the social and environmental needs of their citizens.
At first glance, the headline figures from this year's Global AgeWatch Index, which ranks the quality of life of older people in 96 countries, tell a familiar story.
The watchdog organization Reporters Without Borders on Wednesday released its annual World Press Freedom Index, which ranks 180 countries from highest to lowest levels of press freedom.
