Croatia Best Place to Live in the Balkans

“This isn’t about best value, necessarily, it’s about the places in the world where the living is, simply put, great,” magazine editors wrote on the index this year.

 The 2009 index ranked France first for the fifth year running as the best place to live. The Quality of Life Index ranks 194 countries according to nine categories: cost of living, culture and leisure, the economy, environment, freedom, safety and risk, health, infrastructure and climate.

The top 10 list also included Australia, Switzerland, Germany, New Zealand, Luxembourg, the United States, Belgium, Canada and Italy.

While country’s ravaged by war like Afghanistan, Chad, Sudan, Yemen and Somalia are at the bottom of the list.