9781422283912

These scores allow the Social Progress Imperative to rank countries from the best to the worst and to arrange them in six groups ranging from Very High to Very Low social progress. Its rankings cover 133 total countries, with 1 the best and 133 the worst. Many other nations are unranked but appear in reports nonetheless. History Overall, Europe scores well on the Social Progress Index. Covering 3.9 million squaremiles, Europeextends fromtheAtlanticOceaneast to theUralMountains, the unofficial geographic dividing line between Europe and Asia. But geographic Europe is different from the countries that many people actually consider as European. Geographically, a large part of Russia west of the Urals is located in Europe, but Russia as a whole country is regarded as part of Asia and not Europe. The countries that are considered European are not just geographically close but bound together because of shared ideals and principles. The 48 or so countries that make up Europe operate under some form of democracy where people have a right to vote for their leaders. They also have free market economies. The exact number of countries that make up modern-day Europe may be debated because some countries that were originally considered part of the Soviet Union have now more closely aligned with Europe. Turkey’s identity is a question mark as well. It is a country that straddles both Europe and Asia. It first applied for membership in the European Union (EU) in 1999, but it also has a strong connection to Asia.

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