that's why I live in the arctic. Very dark right now, white, cold and crisp.

This survey is not based on surveys of real, live people who've actually lived in different countries: just a review of statistics.

I wear shorts for 90% of the year, don't think I'd do to well in Iceland.

The bean-mark counters forgot to mention that Iceland is also very atractive because of all the gorgeous babes that live there.

Not to mention very tolerant attitudes to drink and sex..

brian, could you move your tent please, its too close

"Rich, free-market countries dominate the top places" made me laugh. Did the journalist somehow not notice another commonality about the people who built those countries? Such as their racial origin?

What do you mean, Dougie? What has race to do with it?

8. Ciarán
What do you think it has to do with it? You tell me why some races have been able to build pleasant well functioning societies and other races have not.

I think race has nothing to do with it. In the past Ireland was a vile place to live in and Norway was desperately poor. The Norwegians got lucky with oil and we hit on the right set of economic policies along with having some other advantages that were largely out of our control: geographical position, demography, speaking a global language......

Remember that in the Middle Ages, the Arabs led the world while Europe was a poverty stricken backwater. Same races, different times.

10. Ciarán
I don't know how you can think race isn't a factor at all. Can you name a single African country with a society that functions better than a single Western European country? Only South Africa bears any comparison and that's rapidly becoming like the rest of Africa.

Norway has oil but Nigeria, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia all have more. Only Norway has built a decent society.

Regarding Iceland, I'm sure you're right that life there was hard without modern technology, it's pretty close to the Arctic! But technology has changed that. Who invented all that technology?

Language? I didn’t know Norwegian and Icelandic were global languages! You're probably right that Ireland and Britain benefit from speaking English but tell me, why is English the global language and not Swahili or Arabic or Urdu?

Economic policies? Who is responsible for these if not the people of a country and the government they choose for themselves? Besides which despite even communist European countries with outrageous economic absurdities were richer than anywhere in Africa (other than apartheid South Africa of course).

Geographical position? You mean it's some kind of advantage to be on an almost barren rock near the Arctic like Iceland?

Lastly, it's not true that the Arabs led the world at any time. They made some impressive military conquests at a time of political upheaval in Europe and they absorbed some technology from the cultures they conquered. But they added very little original and nothing at all in the past few hundred years.

#11: "English the global language and not Swahili or Arabic or Urdu? "

Becuase an English-speaking empire went around the world, forcing people to learn english?
Some blame the dire state of Africa as a result of european colonialism too.

#12.

European Colonialism is to blame?? All five of these top rated countries were European colonies! Norway was colonised by Sweden, Iceland by Denmark and the rest by Britain. A colonial history hasn't stopped Hong Kong or Singapore from doing well in fact, the institutions set up during colonialism are widely recognised as being assets.

Ethiopia only experienced European Colonialism for a brief period under Mussolini yet it's one of the most problematic countries in Africa. It's over two hundred years since Haiti hanged and beheaded their white colonial overlords. Yet it's been in perpetual anarchy since interrupted only by American occupation.

We Europeans have spent several millennia slaughtering, gassing and ethnically cleansing each other to the point where Europe is now a neat little continent in which practically everyone lives within an entity that has very recent roots: the nation state. The vast majority of people in Ireland consider themselves Irish; the vast majority in the UK consider themselves to be British etc. The nation state does have a lot of natural advantages; there’s a sense of unity in that the vast majority feel they belong to the same group so there’s no struggle for dominance between different ethnicities. With that comes a sense of identification with the state, civic pride and interest in its advancement and also that of all of its citizens.

Africa doesn’t have that; there are few if any nation states in Africa. The “countries” that comprise the continent of Africa are bounded within borders that were imposed mainly by Europeans with no thought as to who was grouped with whom. Imagine if Europe had been carved up the way Africa was with for example southern France lumped in with northern Italy, eastern Germany with Poland, western Germany with northern France and then a couple of hundred years later, such states were granted independence, it would be chaos. The various ethnic and linguistic groups would be locked in a permanent fight for control. If you don’t believe me, read up on the history of Europe up until the mid 20th century.

I didn’t make any comment about Iceland, by the way. All those comments I made about it being a vile place to live in the past, geographic advantages etc. were about Ireland. In any case, the geographic advantages are about being positioned next to a large group of stable, rich countries.

The global dominance of English is I think largely due to the influence of the United States – especially in the years after World War 2. Europe got hooked on the glamour of American culture when there was little in the way of glamour on thi

Hurray for Canada!

We've done it again and we are in yet another top five or top ten list.

But then, being Canadian, we are low down on some other lists.

That is the Canadian way - we accept the accolades and then apologise for boasting.

So sorry for being in the top five of the "coolest" places to live - and I ain't talking about the frigid winters here.

14. Ciarán
I'm surprised you think I haven't laid out my argument. I thought I did so pretty clearly in post 7. Some societies are successful because their populations made them so. Others are catastrophic for the same reason. If the least successful European populations manage this better than the most successful African populations, it’s absurd not to acknowledge a correlation.

14. Ciarán

If you think "Europeans have spent several millennia slaughtering, gassing and ethnically cleansing each other" you seem to be unaware that you're describing the history of the entire world, not just Europe.

I completely agree with you that ethnic homogeneity contributes immensely to a peaceful happy society and this is an advantage we're quickly losing in the west as we become colonised by the third world.

Where European ethnicities do share a state there's certainly conflict - such as in Belgium. But whereas the Flemish and Walloons may detest each other they generally refrain from the type of behaviour we've seen in Baghdad or Rwanda.

And in fact, most European countries are far from truly ethnically homogenous. Germany, France, Italy and most obviously Britain each contain several native ethnic groups, members of whom may identify more strongly as Breton, Scot, Sicilian or Bavarian than with the central state. European nations are no more ethnically homogenous than anywhere else in the world. In fact, North Korea is far more ethnically homogenous than anywhere in Europe! But whereas Europeans and certain others are able to reconcile their specific ethnic identities with membership of a larger state, in much of the third world, people can’t see past the narrow interests of their small tribal group. That’s not a situation European colonists created and nor could they change it so it seems absurd to hold them responsible that tribalism makes nation states unviable in Africa.

It's a typical anti-colonial cliché that third world borders were drawn up carelessly by colonial powers. People who make this claim never actually say where borders should have been. What magical choice of border would have made the Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs peaceful neighbours? What borders should be drawn up to keep the Sunnis, Shias and Kurds of Iraq from fighting each other? Many towns in Iraq such as Mosul and Baghdad are as e

Hasn't the demographics in norway changed over the years? I think their muslim population is growing-which explains their drop in the ideal place to live.

#17 Dougie: Iceland is the most ethnically homogenous country in the world. Iceland is in Europe. Ergo, North Korea is not ethnically more homogenous than any country in Europe.

#17 Dougie: Please read Prof Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel". Africa is cursed with many problems that Europe is not, for reasons peculiar to Africa.

Firstly, all humans evolved in Africa, and this means that Africa is also the home of many diseases that co-evolved with them, e.g. parasites (trypanosomes, spirochetes, tapeworms, guinea worms - you name it). Africa is riddled with diseases that simply cannot thrive in Europe due to its winter conditions. Homo sapiens only migrated from Africa in recent times, and the diseases have not yet evolved to thrive under European conditions.

Secondly, for much the same reasons there are many more insect and animal vectors capable of carrying and transmitting diseases to both humans and livestock. Basically, the closer you are to the Equator the more species there are, and this applies especially to smaller animals such as rodents.

Thirdly, until the introduction of exotic crops, sub-Saharan Africa suffered greatly from a lack of suitable agricultural crops. The few that were indigenous, gave extremely poor yields. By contrast, Europe enjoyed easily cultivated crops such as wheat, barley, and rye.

Fourthly, European culture largely evolved in the Mediterranean, because it enjoys a comfortable climate with easy trade routes betwen countries. Both Italy and Greece had highly advanced civilisations at the same time that Britain had nothing but peasants. Sub-Saharan Africa is exactly that: Sub-Saharan.

Fifthly, European populations rose rapidly largely due to the abundance of flat, fertile lands, with good rainfall. Rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa is much more fickle, and many rivers dry up altogether in winter.

#17 for Dougie, continued:

Sixthly, very few indigenous African animals were domesticable, while from a much earlier stage Europeans enjoyed the use of many Asian and Middle Eastern animals: horses, goats, sheep, oxen...

Seventhly, when domesticated animals were introduced to Africa, they suffered appallingly from diseases such as African horse sickness, rinderpest, sleeping sickness, Rift Valley Fever, heartwater, ...

Eighthly, having reached a high population density, Europeans fought with each other bitterly for control of land and resources. This meant that they developed sophisticated weapons, and tools of war such as fighting ships. These in turn, allowed Europeans to conquer and in fact indulge in the wholesale slaughter of Africans, Asians and Americans. Not to mention slavery.

Ninthly, the Europeans sucked enormous wealth out of developing countries. Gold, diamonds and much else was fundamentally looted by colonial powers, with little of the true value returning to African countries in the way of education, training, etc. The British Empire was as bad as the Beligian or any other. E.g. When Malawi became independent it had just 3 black university graduates, none of which had been deliberately educated by the UK. Dr Hastings Banda, who became the Malawian President, had in fact walked all the way from Malawi to a South African harbour, and got himself on board a ship to Britain, and earned a medical degree by his own, blood, sweat, and tears. The UK did not raise a finger.

Tenthly, the Europeans took all the best land from Africans and prohibited them from advancing. In Southern Rhodesia the British settlers kicked the blacks off all the high, cool, moist, disease-free fertile land, and forced them to live in the hottest, infertile disease-ridden areas. Blacks were by legislation only permitted to hold unskilled jobs, and had to live in prescribed areas. This happened well in advance of apartheid in South Africa, yet th

#17 for Dougie, continued:

11), having fought their own battles to establish nation states in Europe, European countries then drew borders through African tribes and forced others that were hostile to live together.
The Masai were split between Kenya and Tanganyika, the Tswana between the Cape Colony and Bechanaland etc. Genocide was automatically practised againt tribes that did not submit, in all nascent African colonies, e.g. the Germans slaughtered the Hereros in Namibia.

12), Whites came and destroyed African cultures and ways of life, but failed to train and educate people to run the economies that they left behind. The imperial economies were designed to export raw materials to the imperial powers, Internal African trade and trade routes were neglected by imperial powers. Rail and road routes were built to the ocean or navigable rivers, not to link Africa.

13), Current trade rules cripple developing countries. African countries can hardly export any surplus agricultural produce to developed countries because of these restrictions. It is almost impossible for African countries to grind and make their own chocolate from cocoa beans, because of European tarriffs, it is almost impossible for them to roast and grind their own coffee, because of European tarriffs. Europe and Israel have made it extraordinarily difficult for Africans to make and export their own gold, silver and platinum jewellery, to cut and set their own precious stones. No, craftsmanship and artwork are reserved for Europeans and Israelis: the privileged few. Africans are treated like dirt - never allowed to be craftsmen or professionals - doomed for eternity to export raw materials so that developed countries can manufacture things there for each other.

14) The developed world has loved exporting weapons to feed conflicts in developing countries. The Third World War between the West and the Soviet Union was fought by a host of dictators in the developing wor

Tha Dougie lan chac. If he thinks Iceland is 'pure' he needs to check his history. Even their language is a distant relation to Sanskrit.

Many native societies thrived, some still do to an extent, until white Anglo-Saxons brought their diseases, religions and 'advanced' methods of killing.

19. A’Chaora Dhubh
I’m not sure why you think Iceland is more homogenous than North Korea (a large country with hardly any ethnic minorities) but if it’s really important to you I’ll take your word for it. My larger point is that European states in general are not especially homogenous, I agree Iceland is an exception and I’m sure that must contribute immensely to social cohesion and quality of life.

20 A’Chaora Dhubh
LOL, I’ll cut you a deal. I’ll read Jared Diamond’s book after you’ve read Michael Hart’s Understanding Human History or Lynn and Vanhanen’s IQ and the Wealth of Nations.

Every single one of those convoluted excuses for African backwardness are refutable or irrelevant so since I haven’t got time to go through all of them, I invite you to pick the one you think is most important.

Steve Sailer does addresses some of them here at least:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/050724_diamond.htm

Basically, if all the problems of Africa were really due to historical bad luck, we should expect that Africa’s situation would be steadily improving after decolonialisation. In general, it hasn’t.

23. A'Chaluim
Chan e mise a tha lan dheth! Nach do leubh thu a sgriobh mi??
It's #19 who's saying Iceland is homogenous and homogenous quite different from “pure”, a word I don’t think anyone has used to talk about race since the days of Hitler. If you bothered reading post 17, you’ll see I’m quite aware that Sanskrit is an Indo-European language although I’m not really sure why this is relevant to the topic.

Iceland - great place to live, until the volcanoes start up mass eruptions again.

Haha!
I love it when people who live elsewhere argue about what it is like to be in Africa.
I've been living in South Africa for the last 23 years and to be honest, it's not really as bad as you guys are all making out.
The country has not gotten worse. It is just improving slowly. But what do you expect? We have only really gotten the ball moving for just over the last 10 years. We still have a long way to go, but we will get there. It is not easy, as we have a diversity of cultures/religions/races trying to get along.
Congratulations to Iceland for their accomplishment in becoming number one.

Hey Dougie of Edinburgh, you better take a good history lesson before saying the Arabs never contributed anything...when in-fact, you wouldn't be able to do mathematics without Arabic numerals...1,2,3,4,5 etc. have you ever tried to do algebra etc. using your Roman numerals? Almost every fruit and vegetable known to mankind was invented by Arabs during the Islamic Empire that lasted from approx 700 AD to 1450 AD...fact. Algebra was a contribution also. Most of the greatest contributions in Medicine, Astro nomy, Architechture, literature, Philosophy, Navigation of the Seas, running water, etc. etc. etc.all come out of the Islamic Empire. I could go on, but I think this is enough for you to try and comprehend Dougie.

29. Celeste
I don't live in South Africa but I try to keep up with what's going on. It seems clear that some things are improving since the end of apartheid; it would be surprising if that were not so given that South Africa was struggling with armed rebellion and international sanctions until that time. However I've seen plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about the future.

Is there any reason to expect that Zuma will be better than Mugabe?

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1857662007

South Africa may have the highest AIDs rate in the world (this link thinks so at least).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7116836.stm

Crime is out of control, especially rape, murder and robbery. The murder rate in the second highest in the world and far more dangerous than Iraq.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-mu...

The state is corrupt and inefficient; BEE is making private enterprise the same. Crop production is plummeting. Land confiscation from capable farmers has begun. Immigration from Zimbabwe and beyond is adding to overpopulation and the considerable ethnic tensions. Technical infrastructure such as the electricity grid and the national airline are falling into disrepair, victims of BEE and the exodus of technically qualified white people.

For supposedly the most advanced country in Africa, I think it's fair to say there are problems ahead.

30. big john
Very funny. That's what you got told in the madrassa is it?

Hey Dougie, we accept the fact that you're a racist of the worst kind, but if you could read, you could verify everything I told you and much more. Its really humiliating to bring myself down to your level.

#33

That's fine I'll go through your claims point by point

"Arabic" numerals - taken by the Arabs from India

fruit and vegetable known to mankind was invented by Arabs?

Is that with genetic engineering or what? What are all the references to fruit and vegetables in Ancient Greece and Rome all about then?

Algebra? Ancient Babylonians. Only the word is Arabic, not the concept.

Medicine? News to the Ancient Romans and Egyptians I suspect.

Astronomy? Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, Babylon. What did the Arabs do?

Architecture? I mean that really must be a joke right? So the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, the monuments of Ancient Rome and the Acropolis of Athens, the Great Wall of China count for nothing?

literature? The only literature of any importance to world history from Arabic culture is the Koran

Philosophy? Never heard of Socrates and Plato then?

Navigation of the Seas? Try the Phonecians.

running water? Umm... Roman aqueducts? Leaded piping?

By the way, I think you’re confusing the Arabs with the Islamic Empire. The Arabs conquered several cultures much more civilised and advanced than themselves (their one really remarkable achievement). Arabs tend now to pass of the achievements of these other cultures as Arabic achievements. That’s a like modern Mongols claiming the achievements of Ancient Chinese civilisation or Goths claiming the achievements of Ancient Rome.

"Hey Dougie, we accept the fact that you're a racist of the worst kind,"

John: It was St. Bernard who noted that only the poor have the right to commend poverty to others. By the same token, only those who live in the ghetto have the right to commend that lifestyle to others.

Which ghetto do you live in--or are you willing to concede that you're a hypocrite?

Iceland's pretty great and all, but at the moment, I am dreading taking my clothes to the drycleaner's! The wind is crazy and its been raining non-stop for the last 24 hours!

Iceland's pretty great and all, but at the moment, I am dreading taking my clothes to the drycleaner's! The wind is crazy and its been raining non-stop for the last 24 hours!

Iceland should not be the most desiereble place to live we might have really high income and a good life expetacy but its dark in the whinter almost no sun ( sun rises at 10pm sets at 4am) and the prize for house, cloths and electronics are two times higer than in other countrys, only icelanders(and the polish immagants) can live here.

douige, iceland is not barren if it was nobody would live here the summer heat gose up to 25 deegres(thanks to global warming:)30% of the country can be used and glacyers only cover 7% and iceland got rich becuse of the american milatary built roads, ariports, docks and brought in a lot of money during world war 2.