Hippies Head to Iceland

Last week, the Institute for Economics & Peace released the second annual Global Peace Index, a ranking of 140 countries "according to their relative states of peace." Using 24 quantitative and qualitative indicators such as "level of violent crime," "military expenditure as a percentage of GDP," "relations with neighboring countries," and "number of jailed population per 100,000 people," experts at the Economist Intelligence Unit have created the equivalent of the US News and World Report's America's Best Colleges for information about peace and conflict throughout the world. How did the United States fare? A dismal 97 out of 140. But is that really surprising? Here are the top and bottom 10:

The Top 10

1. Iceland

2. Denmark

3. Norway

4. New Zealand

5. Japan

6. Ireland

7. Portugal

8. Finland

9. Luxembourg

10. Austria

The Bottom 10 (Book your travel reservations now)

131. Russia

132. Lebanon

133. North Korea

134. Central African Republic

135. Chad

136. Israel

137. Afghanistan

138. Sudan

139. Somalia

140. Iraq

For more information about the Index, click here. It's a pretty interesting read - hopefully there will be enough funding and interest to make this an annual report for years to come.