Even though Norway is positioned at the low end of the list for Nordic countries, behind Denmark (5), Finland (15) and Sweden (14), it still comes in as the 16th most peaceful country in the world. Norway ranks second overall in the safety and security sector, right behind Iceland. It also enjoys minimal internal conflict, violent crimes and violent demonstrations.

Norway has been a symbol of peace for decades thanks to Alfred Nobel, inventor of the Nobel Peace Prize, who in 1990 decided that a Norwegian panel would be responsible for selecting the award recipient. Since then the prize has been chosen by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, consisting of five members appointed by the Parliament of Norway. To this day, it remains a mystery why Nobel asked a Norwegian committee to select the peace prize, when Swedish committees were tasked with selecting the others.

Norway went down a few pegs from 14th most peaceful in 2017 to 16th in 2018. The main reason? The country performed poorly when it came to militarization, and was among the top 10 for weapons exported per capita.