Australia has been ranked as the world’s seventh best country

WE’VE overtaken the US in the global country rankings for the first time — but there’s some embarrassing things we need to fix.

AUSTRALIA has been ranked as the seventh-best country in the world — overtaking the US for the first time — in an annual ranking survey.

We have moved up a place in the US News Best Countries rankings released today, as Donald Trump’s United States slipped down one place to eighth position.

Chocolate lovers and tax haters Switzerland remained at the top of the list, which has been running for three years now — followed by Canada and Germany.

Despite a crushing Ashes defeat, Brexit and slipping down one spot from last year, the UK cruised past Australia in the rankings to take fourth place.

Australia placed ahead of the US in the survey for the first time. Source: iStock.

Japan (fifth) and Sweden (sixth) pipped us, but the report was still full of praise for Australia.

“The nation has a high rate of participation in sporting activities and boasts a comparatively high life expectancy for both females and males,” the report’s authors wrote. “Its major cities routinely score well in global livability surveys.”

The authors went on to praise fair dinkum Aussies for working hard and maintaining a prosperous market-based economy that has a “comparatively high gross domestic product and per capita income”.

The rankings are calculated using a survey of people around the world who are “informed elites” (middle-class, university educated people who read or watch the news at least four days a week) and “business decision-makers” (senior business leaders or small business owners).

We didn’t rank well in terms of “technological expertise” and “affordability”. Picture: iStock.

They were asked to assess countries they were familiar with from 60 different aspects, including how “friendly”, “sexy”, “progressive”, “entrepreneurial”, “bureaucratic”, “influential” and “affordable” they were.

According to the rankings, Australia is the second-best place in the world (behind New Zealand) to retire and the fifth-best in terms of overall quality of life.

However, we are reportedly terrible when it comes to heritage — ranking 28th place globally. Only 0.7 out of ten survey respondents agreed that we have a “rich history”.

Embarrassingly, Australia was slammed when it came to “sexiness” — as only 0.5 out of ten respondents thought that Australians were “sexy”. Foodies aren’t impressed by us either, as only 22 per cent of respondents thought we had “great food”.

However, Aussies apparently make up for this with likability — as 92 per cent of people thought we were “friendly”.

You don’t get sunsets like this in Switzerland. Source: iStock.

However, we are languishing behind other countries when it comes to “fashion”, “trends”, “cultural influence”, “technological expertise”, “affordability” and “military strength”.

The respondents also say that Australia is a terrible place to study as an international student — earning us a dismal 32nd place ranking globally.

Despite our weaknesses, survey sponsor US News & World Report says the States slipped behind Australia because of a growing worldwide perception that the superpower is becoming less progressive and trustworthy, and more politically unstable.

The survey also found that Mr Trump is extremely unpopular across the world, with a 33 per cent disapproval rating — making him less popular than Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

Some critics have blamed Donald Trump for a slip in the United States’ ranking. Source: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster.

Report contributor David Reibstein wrote that the survey shows the US has always been a great country, but there are some areas in which it could have improved vis-a-vis the rest of the world.

“The past year has also been fraught with tensions associated with treatment of racial and religious minorities,” he wrote.

“This includes rhetoric about the strained relationships between African-Americans and the police, and the treatment of citizens of Islamic faith.

“This climate is likely to blame for the drop in rankings of the distribution of political equality from a high of 7th in 2016 to the current low of 16th.

“In the eyes of the world, it is clear that the promise of making America great again has failed in 2018.”