OREANDA-NEWS. November 28, 2007. Iceland has overtaken Norway as the world's most desirable country to live in, according to an annual United Nations' Human Development Index published on Tuesday, reported the press-centre of PrivatBank.

The top five countries in the ranking are Iceland, Norway, Australia, Canada and Ireland, whereas sub-Saharan Africa is at the bottom of the list, with Sierra Leone last.

The annual index is based on life expectancy, educational levels and real per capita income.

The index ranks 175 U.N. member countries plus Hong Kong and the Palestinian territories. It does not include 17 countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, because of inadequate data.

The Baltic countries are ranked as follows: Lithuania 43rd, Estonia 44th and Latvia 45th. Russia is ranked 67th, Ukraine 76th and Belarus 64th.

Norway had held top spot for six years but was edged into second place by Iceland this year because of new life expectancy estimates and updated figures for gross domestic product, or GDP, the report said.

The United States has slid down to the 12th place, the United States scores high on real per capita GDP, which is second only to that of Luxembourg, but less well on life expectancy.

Japanese have the longest life expectancy - 82.3 years - and Zambians the lowest, at 40,5.

The report said most countries had seen their human development index rise over the last 30 years, but in 16 it was lower than in 1990, and in three - the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe - lower than in 1975.