how we rank countries

Developed by WPP BAV, the annual Best Countries ranking was first launched in 2016 at the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos, the world’s largest gathering of global leaders and heads of industry and influence. It is now in its eighth wave.

The Best Countries ranking incorporates the views of more than 17,000 individuals surveyed in 89 countries in seven regions: Latin America, Oceania, North America, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe. These people included a high proportion of “informed citizens” – college-educated people who keep up with current affairs – along with business decision makers and members of the general public. This year’s survey was completed in June 2024.

Collectively, the 89 countries in the 2024 ranking account for around 95 percent of global Gross Domestic Product and represent around 80 percent of the world’s population. Newly added to the survey this year are Iceland and Kuwait.

the 10 factors that determine a country’s brand

People surveyed for Best Countries were asked how closely they associated 73 attributes with a range of countries. These attributes were then grouped into 10 categories that were used to calculate the Best Countries ranking.

Entrepreneurship

It is connected to the rest of the world, has an educated population, is entrepreneurial, innovative, and provides easy access to capital. There is a skilled labour force, technological expertise, transparent business practices, well-developed infrastructure, and a well-developed legal framework.

Social Purpose

A country is caring, committed to sustainability, and offers an equitable society. It is perceived as caring about gender and racial equality, human rights and the environment, and has well-distributed political power. Religious freedom is respected and there are strong property rights.

Cultural influence

It is culturally significant in terms of entertainment, its people are fashionable and happy, it has an influential culture, is modern, prestigious and trendy. It also has strong consumer brands.

Quality of life

There’s a good job market, it’s economically and politically stable, family-friendly, safe, has good income equality and well-developed public education and health systems.

Open for Business

Manufacturing is inexpensive, there’s a lack of corruption, the country has a favourable tax environment, and transparent government practices. A lack of bureaucracy helps a country be seen as open for business.

Adventure

A country is seen as friendly, fun, has a pleasant climate and is scenic. Adventurous countries are often perceived as great tourism destinations.

Movers

A country scores well on this measure when it’s perceived as being up-and-coming, known for its dynamism and uniqueness.

Agility

The country is adaptable, modern, forward-thinking and responsive.

Heritage

The country is culturally accessible, has a rich history, has great food, and many cultural attractions.

Power

It is a leader, is economically and politically influential, has strong international alliances and a strong military. Strong exports are often part of a picture of power.

How it adds up

Each of the 10 measures is given a weighting in its contribution to the total Best Countries score for each country; countries are ranked according to their total score.

The weighting of each category in the final index is determined by the strength of its correlation to per capita GDP and forecast GDP for 2027. A nation focused on providing great quality of life for its people, which cares about rights and equality, and has a focus on entrepreneurship, is seen as having the most powerful nation brand.

This reflects the modern world and the factors that influence public perceptions and consumer decision making.

Survey Details

Curious to learn more about the details of the Best Countries survey? We have you covered.

What we didn’t do was ask every participant about every aspect of all 89 countries. Instead, each person was given a smaller group of randomly assigned countries and a selection of country attributes to consider. This ensured participants remained engaged with the research and we received quality responses. If someone indicated that they had not heard of a country, it was removed from their survey.

Countries and attributes were presented in a grid form, enabling participants to easily check the characteristics they associated with each country. The more people who checked a particular attribute-country pairing, the higher the attribute score was for that country.

Everyone was also asked to answer a set of questions about the state of the world today on topics including world events, the economy, the environment, leadership, and social issues.

Demographic questions helped us screen for global diversity and representation among participant groups.

Our aim was to survey engaged citizens who are broadly representative of the global population, with an emphasis on those who would deem the topic and findings most relevant to their lives.

Answers to demographic questions allowed us to highlight those respondents who fell into one (or more) of these three groups: “informed elites”, meaning college-educated individuals who consider themselves middle-class or higher and who read or watch the news at least four days a week; “business decision-makers”, meaning senior leaders in an organisation, or small-business owners who employ others; and “general public”, meaning adults at least 18 years old who were nationally representative of their country in terms of age and gender.

Individuals who were likely to fit these descriptions were targeted and sent the link to an online survey powered by the Kantar Profiles Audience Network. A total of 16,960 individuals from 36 countries in the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East were surveyed. Of these, 8,096 were informed elites, 4,424 were business decision-makers, and 7,509 were considered general public.

Some respondents were considered both informed elites and business decision-makers. Every individual’s responses were weighed equally in the results.

We selected the countries based on their performance on a number of independent business, economic and quality-of-life indicators.

To be included in the 2024 Best Countries rankings, a country had to meet all four of the following criteria, or be a top 10 country in any one of them:

Its GDP put it in the Top 100 countries in the world, according to World Bank data, for any year between 2018 and 2022;
It was among the Top 100 countries for foreign direct investment inflows in any year from 2018 to 2022, based on World Bank data;
It was one of the Top 100 countries based on international tourism receipts or tourism arrivals in any year from 2018 to 2022, based on World Bank data; and
It was among the Top 150 countries in the UN’s Human Development Index in any year from 2018 to 2022.