Peaceful Places

The Global Peace Index was published last week. If you've never heard of that, it's the attempt to rank 153 nations based on their peacefulness and the peacefulness of their region.

There are 23 indicators including things like:

- the number of internal and external conflicts fought

- level of respect for human rights

- political instability

- level of distrust of other citizens

- military expenditure

- level of violent crime

If you're curious about where you are in terms of "peacefulness", read on . . .

Iceland is #1.

Iceland only has about 300,000 people so how hard can it be to be peaceful, right? Nearly the entire population is Icelandic by birth, they speak Icelandic and 80% of their population is Lutheran.

New Zealand is #2.

New Zealand on the other hand has over 4 million people. It is a multi-ethnic society with only about 65% being of European origin. About half identify themselves as Christian and more than a third say they have no religion.

So where are you on this index? Well, first . . .

our neighbor Canada comes in at #8 and our other neighbor, Mexico at #121.

Naturally, I wanted to know where Belgium falls in this ranking too. It's right between Sweden and Germany.

Sweden #13

Belgium #14

Germany #15

By the way, Western Europe, where we live now, is considered the most peaceful region in the world. I'm grateful for that.

So where is the U.S.?

It falls right between Gabon and Bangladesh.

Gabon #81

U.S. #82

Bangladesh #83

In case you don't know where those are (I didn't) . . . here's a couple of maps.

Gabon is in West Africa

Bangladesh is that country in purple just east of India.

The U.S. has over 300 million people, nearly 90% were born there, over 70% are White, 75% say they are Christian and over 80% speak English as their mother tongue.

Kind of sounds like it could be Iceland - just with a lot more people?

GPI Map