The Countries With the Lowest Perceived Corruption

You'd be hard pressed to find a country in which there isn't some level of government corruption. Everyone is susceptible to greed and the thirst for power, and those in the upper echelons of governance tend to be surrounded by more temptation than most.

But there are some places in which people feel that their government has their best interest in mind — where citizens can speak up and feel heard. Where are these exceptions to the rule? WorlCountryFacts  used the most recent 2015 data from Transparency International to find out. The FindTheData team identified the countries with the lowest perceived levels of public sector corruption.

The global coalition uses expert opinion and surveys to assign each country a score called the Corruption Perceptions Index. The score is out of 100, where a higher score indicates a lower level of perceived corruption. The score takes into account whether the country has a free press, public access to the government's budget, integrity among those in power and a fair judiciary system (officials don't have a bias towards the rich) that is independent from the other parts of government.

WorlCountryFacts ranked 168 countries by their Corruption Perceptions Indexes. Transparency International didn't include data for Greenland or Western Sahara, so they are excluded from the list. Several of the countries had tied scores, making a true ranking less definitive.

Transparency International found that many Northern European countries scored well and therefore have "clean" public sectors. But the organization makes sure to note that even though a country may be virtually corruption-free within its borders, this doesn't mean it isn't linked to corruption elsewhere. According to its research, "half of all countries [in the 1997 OECD Anti-Bribery Convention] are violating their international obligations to crack down on bribery by their companies abroad," including Sweden, which is ranked third in the world for the least amount of perceived corruption.

10 Cities With the Highest Murder Rates

 There was good news in the preliminary Uniform Crime Report released by the FBI this week, with the overall number of violent offenses across the U.S. dropping from 1.32 million in 2009 to 1.15 million in 2013. But that’s still 1.15 million too many.

Included in those numbers were an estimated 14,196 murders. Keep reading to see where murder rates in the U.S. were highest.

The Poorest Countries in the World

While many people in the U.S. worry about waiting in line too long for coffee or whether the car they want comes in the right color, across the globe there are many people simply trying to make ends meet every day. These people frequently live in the poorest countries in the world — places with struggling economies, a lack of natural resources or a combination of that and more.

To determine the world's most cash poor countries, ranked countries based on their on their gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, as reported by the World Bank in 2015. They only included members of the United Nations.

Note: Although the CIA World FactBook lists North Korea's GDP per capita as $1,800, DataFinder excluded North Korea from the list due to its lack of reliable reporting.

#1 - Burundi
GDP per capita: $275.98
Country GDP: $3,093,647,227
Population: 11,179,000

Government type: Republic

#2 - Central African Republic

GDP per capita: $306.78

Country GDP: $1,503,299,944

Population: 4,900,000

Government type: Republic

#3 - Niger

GDP per capita: $358.96

Country GDP: $7,142,951,342

Population: 19,899,000

Government type: Republic

#4 - Malawi

GDP per capita: $381.37

Country GDP: $6,565,382,259

Population: 17,215,000

Government type: Presidential

#5 - Madagascar

GDP per capita: $411.82

Country GDP: $9,980,522,718

Population: 24,235,000

Government type: Republic

#6 - Gambia

GDP per capita: $441.29

Country GDP: $850,903,179

Population: 1,991,000

Government type: Republic

#7 - Liberia

GDP per capita: $455.87

Country GDP: $2,053,000,000

Population: 4,503,000

Government type: Republic

#8 - The Democratic Republic of the Congo

GDP per capita: $456.05

Country GDP: $35,237,742,278

Population: 77,267,000

Government type: Presidential, Republic

#9 - Mozambique

GDP per capita: $525.01

Country GDP: $14,688,606,238

Population: 27,978,000

Government type: Republic

#10 - Guinea

GDP per capita: $531.32

Country GDP: $6,699,203,543

Population: 12,609,000

Government type: Republic

#11 - Togo

GDP per capita: $547.97

Country GDP: $4,002,723,817

Population: 7,305,000

Government type: Republic

#12 - Somalia

GDP per capita: $551.86

Country GDP: $5,953,000,000Population: 10,787,000

Government type: Republic

# 13 - Guinea-Bissau

GDP per capita: $573.03

Country GDP: $1,056,851,008Population: 1,844,000

Government type: Republic

#14 - Afghanistan

GDP per capita: $590.27

Country GDP: $20,038,215,159Population: 32,527,000

Government type: Islamic Republic

# 15 - Burkina Faso

GDP per capita: $613.04

Country GDP: $12,542,221,942Population: 18,106,000

Government type: Republic

#16 - Ethiopia

GDP per capita: $619.14

Country GDP: $61,537,143,095Population: 99,391,000

Government type: Federal Republic

#17 - Uganda

GDP per capita: $675.57

Country GDP: $26,369,242,278Population: 39,032,000

Government type: Republic

# 18 - Sierra Leone

GDP per capita: $693.41

Country GDP: $4,474,689,706Population: 6,453,000

Government type: Constitutional Democracy

#19 - Rwanda

GDP per capita: $697.35

Country GDP: $8,095,980,014Population: 11,610,000

Government type: Republic, Presidential

#20 - South Sudan

GDP per capita: $730.58

Country GDP: $9,015,221,096Population: 12,340,000

Government type: Republic

#21 - Nepal

GDP per capita: $732.30

Country GDP: $20,880,545,907Population: 28,514,000

Government type: Democratic Republic

#22 - Mali

GDP per capita: $744.35

Country GDP: $13,100,263,697Population: 17,600,000

Government type: Republic

#23 - Eritrea

GDP per capita: $754.89

Country GDP: $3,857,821,184Population: 5,228,000

Government type: Presidential

The 50 Wealthiest Countries

Though many people think that the wealthier a country is, the better off it is, this isn’t always the case. For example, in the United States, one of the richest countries in the world, many people battle depression, anxiety and an overall lack of happiness. However, for the most part, a higher per capita gross domestic product indicates a better standard of living and an arguably better life. In fact, many of the wealthiest countries have superior health and increased lifespans.

Using 2015 data from the World Bank  looked at all 193 countries in the United Nations to determine the 50 wealthiest countries, ranked by their per capita GDP.

Many of the countries on this list are unsurprising — the U.S., Australia and Switzerland all fall in the top 10. Of the top 50 richest countries, some are quite small. Qatar has approximately 2.2 million citizens and Monaco has around 38,000 citizens — most American cities have more people than that.

Of the hyper-wealthy small countries, many got rich for very unique reasons. Monaco did away with its income tax in 1896, which explains its draw for the world’s super wealthy. Qatar, on the other hand, sits atop one of the world's largest natural-gas and oil reserves — the discovery of this in 1940 helped bring the country to its current level of wealth.

However, not all of the countries on this list are tiny economic anomalies. Though the smallest country of the top 50 has only 32,000 citizens, the largest country has approximately 320 million people.

The Countries With the Highest Perceived Corruption

Out of the 7 billion people who live on Earth, more than 6 billion live in countries with corrupt governments, according to anti-corruption coalition Transparency International. That's about 68 percent of countries worldwide, including half of the G20.

Of course, no country is truly free of corruption—even though it may be less severe in some areas of the world, it still lurks in every governing body. With this in mind, Data Finder used the most recent 2015 data from Transparency International to identify the countries with the highest perceived levels of public sector corruption.

The global coalition uses expert opinion and surveys to assign each country a score called the "Corruption Perceptions Index" (CPI). The score is out of 100, where a lower score indicates a higher level of perceived corruption. The score takes into account whether the country has a free press, public access to the government's budget, integrity among those in power, a fair judiciary system (officials don't have a bias towards the rich) that is independent from the other parts of government.

FindTheData ranked each country by its CPI. Transparency International didn't include data for Greenland, so it is excluded from the list. Several of the countries had tied scores, making a true ranking less definitive.

Though they didn't crack the top 30 list, Transparency International wrote in a report that the level of perceived corruption in Australia, Brazil, Libya, Spain and Turkey has risen dramatically. Also, note that these countries that made the list are all characterized by some sort of violent social or political conflict.

17 Countries Where Illiteracy is a Major Problem

For many, learning to read is like learning to swim: it’s a non-negotiable stepping stone that you might struggle with as you practice, but you know that one day you’ll get it. But in some countries, literacy is neither a given nor a right to every person. We looked through our data and found the countries with the lowest literacy rates in the world—one, in particular, that the United States is currently in conflict with. The data comes from the CIA World Factbook , in which literacy is defined as “the ability to read and write at a specified age. [...] Low levels of literacy, and education in general, can impede the economic development of a country in the current rapidly changing, technology-driven world.” We determined that a literacy rate of 55% or lower is considered a pretty severe country-wide issue. Here are the countries that rank in the bottom 17.

Countries That Devote the Most Workers to the Military

Democratic People's Republic of Korea Military Demonstration Start

Credit: AFP/Stringer | Getty Images

Countries value their national security above all else. Today, organized militaries employ nearly 200 million people worldwide — modern countries rarely lack a standing army. Armed services can be generally broken down into land-based armies, seafaring navies and high-flying air forces, though some countries do have additional branches such as the United States Coast Guard and Marines.

Using data from the World Bank crunched the numbers to find the top 25 countries with the most troops. Rather than using aggregate troop count to rank the list, we ordered it by the percentage of a country’s total labor force represented by its troops. The World Bank defines armed forces as any active military personnel that have received some form of training and are properly organized. This includes paramilitary forces, such as private contracted defense agencies like Academi (formerly known as Blackwater) that have adequate training to qualify them to support or replace state troops. Labor force is defined as a country’s economically active population.

The Longest Living Countries

As a whole, humans around the world are living longer. For the past century, life expectancy in most countries has increased due to advances in healthcare, agricultural techniques and decreased infant mortality.

However, despite being one of the wealthiest and most influential countries in the world, the United States still falls short in terms of life expectancy. Using 2014 data from the World Bank, the experts at HealthGrove found the top 50 countries with the longest average life expectancies — and the U.S. barely made the cut.

A couple factors might help explain this. First, the U.S. does not prioritize physical activity and nutritious diets the way many other countries do. The importance of these factors becomes remarkably clear when comparing the longest-living country’s lifespan of 89 years to America’s 79.

On the other end of the spectrum, Japan has seen one of the fastest increases in lifespan since the end of World War II — piquing the interest of many researchers. With an average lifespan of 82 years and a rank within the top 10 on our list, Japan’s longevity exemplifies the benefits of exercising, eating well and maintaining social connections throughout life.

The fact that Japan and many other countries spend less than the U.S. on healthcare per capita, yet see people living longer, is a clear indicator that the Land of the Free should do something (or a lot of things) differently.