Canada ranked as 'most admired' country in the world: report

Three year old Sam Kashfi smiles as he watches the annual Canada Day parade in Montreal, Wednesday, July 1, 2015. (Graham Hughes / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Canada is the "most admired" country with the "best reputation" in the world, according to an annual survey ranking the reputations of developed nations across the globe.

The 2015 report from the Reputation Institute ranked Canada as the most reputable country in the world, based on a variety of environmental, political, and economic factors.

The Reputation Institute's Fernando Prado says Canada offers "something good" in many different categories evaluated in the survey.

"We all love Canada because of several things," Prado told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday. In particular, he praised Canada for its "effective government," "absence of corruption," "friendly and welcoming people" and welfare support system.

However, there were a few categories where Canada lags behind, Prado said, explaining that Canada has a perceived lack of strong brand names and companies, and is not considered a particularly important contributor to the global culture.

Despite its "less positive" scores, Canada's well-rounded performance in most categories helped it regain top spot on the Reputation Institute's list, after it fell to second place in 2014.

Canada held down top spot for three consecutive years prior to that, from 2011 to 2013.

"Overall, Canada is a country that can offer something good in all different aspects," Prado said.

The Reputation Institute surveyed approximately 48,000 residents of G8 countries to gather the data for its rankings. Survey respondents were asked to rank the reputations of the world's 55 wealthiest nations (based on GDP) in a variety of categories.

Norway placed second on the list, followed by Sweden, Switzerland, and Australia. The United States slotted into 22nd spot.

The Reputation Institute also produced a separate list ranking countries based on what their citizens said about their homelands. Australia ranked first on this "self-image" list, followed by Canada, Russia, India and Germany, with the U.S. in sixth place.

Russia had the largest gap between their self-image and how they are perceived by other nations. Russian citizens scored their country as the third-most reputable country in the world, but other nations ranked them 52nd out of 55 countries, ahead of only Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.

The gap between internal reputation and external reputation was also large for China, India and the United States.

The Reputation Institute bills itself as "the world's leading research and advisory firm for reputation."