Which Country Has the Best Quality of Life?

According to the January 2008 edition of International Living magazine the answer is France. The magazine gave 192 countries scores out of 100 for the following factors: cost of living, culture & leisure, economy, environment, freedom, health, infrastructure, safety and climate. It then combined the rankings to produce a final score out of 100. The top 10 places to live according to International Living are:

1. France
2. Switzerland
3. The United States
4. Luxembourg
5. Germany
6. Australia
7. Italy
8. New Zealand
9. Spain
10. The Netherlands

No prizes for guessing the bottom 3 countries: Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq.
Other highlights:

• The United Kingdom scored 34th overall, brought down by its high cost of living.
• Of the top 10, the United States was the only country to score less than 100 on freedom and was in fact behind 51 other countries on this measure. Presumably this is the influence of George Bush’s PATRIOT Act.
• The other poor showing for the US was health, for which it scored 61st overall, beaten on this ranking by, among others: Bulgaria, Cuba, Mexico, Jamaica, Libya, Egypt, North Korea, Costa Rica, Jordan, Brazil, Albania and Russia.
• The only country to score 100 for health was France.
• The only country to score 100 for culture & leisure was Italy.
• The top 10 countries for climate were Ecuador, Malta, South Africa, Swaziland, Croatia, Guatemala, Uruguay, Argentina, Portugal and Australia.
• The only country to score 0 for climate was Yemen.
• Australia’s overall score was brought down by its relatively poor performances on cost of living, economy, and culture & leisure.
• Australia ranked 34th overall for culture & leisure, behind New Zealand, Namibia, Cuba and Kuwait.

Complete rankings can be found here and an explanation of the scoring can be found here.