Portugal is the third most peaceful country and the first in European Union as shown by Peace Index 2017. Only Iceland and New Zealand rank ahead of Portugal

Portugal has been climbing the Global Peace Index over the years and has joined the top 3 in 2017. In 2016 Portugal was 5th and less than five years ago it held the 16thposition in GPI. The Portuguese meteoric rise is driven by economy recovery and by overall internal stability.

Global Peace Index 2017 shows that “the world slightly improved in peace last year but has become less peaceful over the last decade”. Most nations in the index became more peaceful over the past year – 93 countries have improved while 68 deteriorated. In the long run however, the world has become less peaceful over the last decade, “with most countries having only small increases in peacefulness, while a handful of countries have had very large deteriorations in peace”. The economic impact of violence on the economy is huge, the index also shows.

Source: Vision of Humanity

Iceland is once again the most peaceful country in the world, a position it has held since 2008. It is joined at the top of the index by New Zealand, Portugal, Austria, and Denmark, all of which were ranked highly in the 2016 GPI. At the bottom of the table, Syria is the least peaceful country for the fifth consecutive year, followed by Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan and Yemen.

This is the 11th edition of Global Peace Index published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace, an international center for human development studies. The report assesses 23 indicators, such as number and duration of internal and external conflicts, homicide rate, possibility of violent demonstrations and degree of militarization.

Download full report here.