Travel is a fun, enjoyable and enriching experience – but not when you have to worry about your safety and well-being in a foreign country. This is particularly important if you’re travelling solo or a member of a marginalised community.
For that, it’s beneficial to cast your eyes on the annual Global Peace Index. Published by the Institute for Economics and Peace, this international study measures the safety and peacefulness of a country using an index of 23 qualitative and quantitative factors. These include the country’s crime rate, levels of violence and demonstrations, access to weapons, political stability, military expenditure, relationship with neighbouring countries, and more.
Once the countries are assessed individually, they are ranked to create the Global Peace Index. This year, Iceland came up top as the most peaceful country in the world, followed by Denmark at No 2 and Ireland at No 3. Japan did pretty well, too, as it was ranked the 9th most peaceful out of 163 countries in the study.
Japan excelled for its low violent crime rates, few violent demonstrations, difficult access to weapons and high political stability. All of which makes for a high quality of life. This partly explains why Japan is also one of the top travel destinations in the world right now, with Tokyo being the No 1 city people want to visit again.
Here are the ten most peaceful countries in the world according to the 2023 Global Peace Index:
- Iceland
- Denmark
- Ireland
- New Zealand
- Austria
- Singapore
- Portugal
- Slovenia
- Japan
- Switzerland
For more information, check out Global Peace Index’s interactive map.
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