
Denmark has been declared the best place in the world to live while the Central African Republic is the worst, according to a new study.

Australia ranks ninth out of a total of 128 countries, the United Kingdom comes in 12th while the United States is 18th.

The results were revealed in the 2017 Social Progress Index which measures 50 indicators of what life is like for people living in different nations around the world.

Denmark has been declared the best place to live on an index of 'social progress' which measures basic human needs, foundations of well being, and opportunities

Iceland was ranked the second best place to live on a list that heavily favoured European countries - making up seven of the top 10

Those indicators are broken down into three categories - basic human needs, foundations of wellbeing and opportunity.

TOP 10 NATIONS 1) Denmark, 90.57/100 2) Finland, 90.53 -3) Iceland, 90.27 -3) Norway, 90.27 5) Switzerland, 90.10 6) Canada, 89.84 7) Netherlands, 89.82 8) Sweden, 89.66 -9) Australia, 89.30 -9) New Zealand, 89.30 Advertisement

Basic human needs includes data on access to medication, sanitation, shelter and security; wellbeing takes in information on education, access to communications and environment; while opportunity covers rights, freedoms, tolerance, and access to higher education.

Europe was the continent which fared the best, comprising 11 of the 14 countries deemed to be making 'very high social progress' - the other nations in that category were New Zealand, Australia and Canada.

North American and South American nations were largely ranked as having 'good progress', according to the study, while Asian countries were making modest gains.

African countries fared the worst of all those for which data was available, making up six of the seven countries deemed to have 'very low progress'.

There is more bad news for the continent when compared to previous studies, as two African nations - the Central African Republic and Republic of Congo - recorded the largest drop between the first survey in 2014 and 2017.

On the whole Africa fared the worst of all continents, making up eight of the bottom ten countries. The lowest ranked of all was the Central African Republic (pictured)

Chad (pictured) was also one the worst-performing countries, at position 126 of 128. The only countries in the bottom 10 not in Africa were both in the Middle East - Yemen and Afghanistan

BOTTOM 10 NATIONS 128) Central African Republic, 28.38 127) Afghanistan, 35.66 126) Chad, 35.69 125) Angola, 40.73 124) Niger, 42.97 123) Guinea, 43.40 122) Yemen, 43.46 121) Ethiopia, 45.29 120) Sierra Leone, 47.10 119) Madagascar, 47.40 Advertisement

Nicaragua and Hungary were also included in that category.

It was not all doom and gloom, however, as African countries also made up the majority of the most-improved nations.

Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria were all singled out for praise.

There was also good news for Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan, which also saw large improvements over the three years.

Some of the most troubled countries in the world - such as Venezuela, Iraq and Syria - were not included in the study because data could not be collected.

Overall the world has made progress since 2014, the report authors noted, saying that access to communications and education have increased rapidly, though noted that personal rights, personal safety, and tolerance had stagnated or decreased.