Canada Dropped In A Ranking Of The Most Peaceful Countries But Is Still Higher Than The US

A new ranking of the world's most peaceful countries revealed that Canada has dropped spots but the nation is still higher than the U.S..

The Global Peace Index from the Institute for Economics & Peace, which ranks 163 states and territories according to their level of peacefulness, has been released.

It found that the average level of global peacefulness deteriorated slightly by 0.3% which is the 11th deterioration in the world's peacefulness in the last 14 years.

Since 2013, Canada has been consistently in the top 10 of the most peaceful countries in the world but that changed with this year's edition of the index.

This country came in the 12th spot overall which is down four places from the previous year's ranking which marks Canada's "first substantial deteriorations in peacefulness" in more than 10 years.

Also, Canada had the "largest deterioration" in all of North America in 2022.

"This was largely driven by anti-government sentiment in response to pandemic restrictions which resulted in large-scale protests namely the blockades at Ambassador Bridge that occurred in early 2022," the Global Peace Index reported.

The most peaceful country in the world according to the ranking is Iceland followed by New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Singapore, Japan and Switzerland.

The U.S. came in 129th place which is a "slight deterioration" from last year and is attributed to civil unrest in the country.

Despite dropping spots, Canada "continues to be the most peaceful nation" in North America thanks to "major improvements" in other areas including terrorism, nuclear weapons and heavy weapons.

When it comes to the happiest countries, Canada ranked 15th overall in the 2022 World Happiness Report which is its "lowest ranking ever."

According to the report, "this marks a substantial fall for Canada" because it was ranked fifth in the first-ever World Happiness Report that came out 10 years ago.

This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.