Canadian flags line the road around Parliament Hill during the National Day of Honour ceremony in Ottawa May 9, 2014. The event marks the end of Canada's military mission in Afghanistan. REUTERS/Blair Gable
Canadian flags line the road around Parliament Hill during the National Day of Honour ceremony in Ottawa May 9, 2014. The event marks the end of Canada's military mission in Afghanistan. Reuters/Blair Gable

Canada has been listed as the world's fifth most prosperous country, ranking over Australia, the United Kingdom and even the United States, an international prosperity index released by the Legatum Institute of London said.

The 2014 edition of the Legatum Prosperity Index placed Norway on the top spot. The index measures economic progress, health, opportunity and personal freedom for a country to be placed on the list.

Rounding up the top 10 were Switzerland (2nd), New Zealand (3rd), Denmark (4th), Sweden (6th), Australia (7th), Finland (8th), Netherlands (9th) and the U.S. (10th). UK was at the 13th spot.

A total of 142 countries were in the list. The bottom two were given to Chad and Central African Republic.

According to the index, Canada ranked well on education, which listed second among surveyed countries. Its worst ranking, meantime, were in the entrepreneurship and opportunity criteria, where it came off at 17th.

The other criteria the prosperity index used were economy, governance, health, safety & security, personal freedom and social capital. On the personal freedom sub-category, Canada dropped to 5th place, after occurring the top spot for the past few years. Personal freedom likewise fell for the U.S., to 21st this year from 14th two years ago.

Canada's tolerance was highly cited by the index, after it found that 92 percent of people said they are afforded the freedom to choose and plot the course of their own lives, socially and economically. Moreover, Canada likewise listed among the freest countries economically. The others were the U.S., U.K., Switzerland, New Zealand and Australia.

Completing the top 20 of the 2014 edition of the Legatum Prosperity Index were Iceland (11th), Ireland (12th), Germany (14th), Austria (15th), Luxembourg (16th), Belgium (17th), Singapore (18th), Japan (19th) and Hong Kong (20th).

Other notables in the survey:

- Russia was the European region's biggest loser, dropping a whopping seven places to 68th overall, no thanks to the Ukrainian conflict that broke out early this year

- Albeit back on the top 10, safety and security still remains low in the U.S.

- China, which ranked 54th overall, is 117th on personal freedom