Korea is ranked sixth in this year's global power rankings by the magazine U.S. News & World Report. 

By Israa Mohamed
Photos = Screen captured from U.S. News and World Report 

An American magazine has ranked Korea as the sixth most powerful country in the world.

U.S. News & World Report put the country at No. 6 in releasing the results of its joint research with BAV Group, a unit of the global marketing and communications company VMLY&R, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

The study surveyed about 17,000 respondents worldwide and calculated rankings for 85 countries based on 10 categories: adventure, agility, cultural influence, entrepreneurship, heritage, movers, openness for business, power, quality of life and social purpose.

Among the subcategories in power, Korea received high scores in strong exports (84), economic influence (79.8), strong military (79.1) and international alliances (66.4) but got relatively low scores in political influence (48.6) and leadership (22.5). The country's overall score was 64.7, good for sixth.

The U.S. topped the power rankings with a score of 100, followed in order by China (96.3), Russia (92.7), Germany (81.6) and the U.K. (79.5). Japan ranked sixth last year but fell to eighth this year (63.2) while France was seventh (63.3), the same as last year.

"The nation (Korea) has seen steady growth and poverty reduction since the 1960s and is now the world's seventh-largest exporter and 11th-largest economy overall," the magazine said.

 
On Seoul, it added, "It is home to the headquarters of Samsung, Hyundai and Kia, representing two of South Korea's important exports: technology and cars."

Korea scored high in other categories like entrepreneurship (sixth), cultural influence (seventh), agility (13th) and movers (13th) but low in openness for business (76th), adventure (51st) and social purpose (42nd).

In the "best countries" rankings based on an overall score of indicators, Korea ranked 20th with a score of 70.6. It had finished 15th last year among 78 countries.

Switzerland was named the best country with a score of 100, followed in order by Germany (98), Canada (97.8), the U.S. (97.1) and Sweden (95.7). Japan (95.6), Australia (94.3), the U.K. (92.4), France (90.5) and Denmark (89.8) rounded out the top 10.  

U.S. News and World Report ranks Korea sixth in the world in power with a score of 64.7.