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In its annual ranking, compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace, Armenia has significantly improved its index and is again leading in the region.

Thus, in this ranking Armenia is the 98th, Azerbaijan is the 122nd, Georgia is the 139th. Armenia's neighbors in the region, Iran, Turkey and Russia, are in the 137th, 134th and 155th places correspondingly.

In the ranking of 2012 Armenia was in the 115th place, Azerbaijan was in 132nd and Georgia in 141st. Armenia was leading in the region in 2011 as well.

The report notes that the Global Peace Index measures the level of violence within the state and aggression of its foreign policy. The first such ranking was introduced in May 2007. The Index of Peacefulness was developed by an international group of experts from a number of research institutes and think-tanks under the auspices of the Institute for Economics and Peace, University of Sydney (Australia).

In the preparation of the current rating, 162 countries were analyzed (in last year's ranking 158 countries were studied) by the researchers at a specially designed metrics. The index of peacefulness is composed of 22 qualitative and quantitative indicators pooled into three main groups: the existence and extent of the conflict, the level of stability and security in the state and the level of militarization of the state.

This year Iceland, Denmark, New Zealand, Austro, Switzerland lead the list of the peaceful countries. Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, and Afghanistan close the rating.