AUSTRALIA ranks among the most racially tolerant countries in the world, a global study of social attitudes has found.

We sit alongside our neighbours New Zealand, the US, UK, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Latvia and large parts of Latin America in the rankings of 80 countries.

India, Jordan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong are the most racially intolerant countries, the data mapping shows.

The data was taken from the World Value Survey - a study by Swedish economists - which has been measuring global attitudes from three decades, the Washington Post reports.

The survey asked respondents to identify people they wouldn't want as neighbours, with one of the options on the list being "people of a different race".

Hong Kong was found to be the least racially tolerant nation, with 71.8 per cent of respondents saying they didn't want a neighbour of a different race.

Bangladesh was a close second with 71.8 per cent, followed by Jordan with 51.4 per cent and India with 43.5 per cent.

Other racially diverse countries in Asia and the Middle East, where there is a diversity of religions and economic migrants often come from poorere countries in the region, also scored low on the tolerance level.

In Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Malaysia up to 39.9 per cent of respondents said they would not like living next to a person of a different race.

On the flipside, in multicultural western countries including Australia, the UK, Canada and the US, 5 per cent or less of respondents didn't want to live next to people of a different race.

See the full mapping at the Washington Post

