No. 25

Uruguay
GDP per capita: $9,210
Life Expectancy: 75.7
Mean Years of Schooling: 15.4
Unemployment: 7.6%

South America’s second-smallest country, Uruguay is sandwiched between Brazil and Argentina and is dominated by grasslands. Home to more than 3 million people, Uruguay's political and labor conditions are some of the freest on the continent, according to the World Factbook. After a major downturn in 1999-2002 rocked the region, the country managed 8% annual economic growth between 2004 and 2008. Uruguay received the maximum score for a highly clean electoral process, while low education spending and higher levels of perceptions of criminality in society, ease of access to weapons of minor destruction, and infant mortality weighed on its final score.