America may be the land of the free — but it’s not the land of peace, a new study finds. 
 
 In general, the world became slightly less peaceful in 2016, thanks in part to intense violence in the Middle East and North Africa, according to a study of peacefulness in 163 countries and territories released this week by the global think tank Institute for Economics and Peace. 
 
 The study examined 23 factors related to peacefulness, including each country’s involvement in internal and external conflicts; crime, terrorist activity, violent demonstrations, relations with other countries, stability of politics, proportion of the population being internally displaced or made refugees, and levels of militarization. All in all, the authors hope to define peace as “the harmony achieved by the absence of violence or the fear of violence.” 
 
 
 
 Once again, Iceland is the most peaceful country on earth, followed by Denmark and Austria. Meanwhile, conflict-ridden countries like Syria, South Sudan and Iraq and Afghanistan are at the bottom of the list. Syria landed at the bottom due, in part, to its civil war, which “broadened its international scope as a result of the Russian intervention that began in September 2015 on the side of the Syrian government,” the authors note. 
 
 The United States ranks 100th (out of 163 total areas) in terms of peacefulness. This low score is thanks, in part, to these factors: “U.S. involvement in the armed conflict against ISIL escalated” and “relations between the U.S. and Russia have also deteriorated.” 
 
 This study is far from the final word on peacefulness. The authors admit that “peace is notoriously difficult to define.” Plus, many of the things they use to measure peace are qualitative, and thus prone to human judgement, which can be skewed. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
– Congratulations, America: You sit 103rd on a list that ranks countries by their peacefulness, in a report compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace. The ranking is based on 23 factors including involvement in conflicts at home and abroad, crime, terrorist activity, political stability, levels of militarization, and relations with other countries in general. MarketWatch reports that latter factor dinged us, citing US-Russian relations. The fight against ISIS further dragged down America's score. The 10 most peaceful countries: Iceland Denmark Austria New Zealand Portugal Czech Republic Switzerland Canada Japan Slovenia Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan, and Syria bring up the rear. Click for the full report or see the top 10 "good" countries.