Shawdesh desk:

What do you consider important when deciding where to go on vacation? Sunny beaches? Good food? Fun activities?

How about peace and safety? Those might just be the most important things!

That’s why you might want to check this year’s Global Peace Index — or GPI — which lists the world’s countries by how peaceful they are.

This year’s report is the 17th from the Institute for Economics and Peace, and it covers 163 countries and 99.7% of the world’s population.

According to the GPI, the world’s most peaceful country is Iceland. This country has actually come first every year since 2008. Denmark came second and Ireland is in third place.

The GPI report says Europe is the world’s most peaceful region, and home to seven of the 10 most peaceful countries. The only non-European countries in the top 10 are New Zealand at number four, Singapore at number six and Japan at number nine.

The GPI measures “peace” in each country across three areas: how safe and secure it is, how much conflict there is and how much a country is building up its military.

But if we are mostly interested in safety and security, then we find that the safest country in the world is actually Finland. Japan is in second place and Iceland is third.

At the other end of the peaceful list are the most dangerous countries. On this list Afghanistan is the least peaceful country in the world, followed by Yemen and Syria. Sadly, Afghanistan has been the least peaceful country for eight years now.

The report says that all of the countries on the list of 10 least peaceful countries have always been on that list — which shows how hard it is for their situation to change.