Top 10 Cleanest Countries in the World

The Top Ten
1 Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a sovereign and unitary monarchy in Northern Europe whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula plus the island Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard. Oslo is the capital of Norway. Norwegian is the official language of Norway.

Norway is, without a doubt, one of the world's cleanest countries. Norway is spotless everywhere, from the big cities to the rural areas. Norwegians are disciplined and know how to properly dispose their trash. They make sure that their country is free from any dirt.

I went to a music festival, they literately checked the porter potty after each person used it, to see if it needed to be cleaned, and if you dropped trash on the grass, it would literally get picked up within 5 minutes!

Immaculate... and this is again as with Japan because the Norwegians have a thought process which lends itself to improvement and tidy productivity!

Never been, but all the sources tell me its by far the cleanest. Takes the number one spot for countries using renewable energy

2 Sweden Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, and is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund. At 450,295 square kilometers (173,860 sq mi), Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10 million.

Sweden is the country I live in and it is the cleanest and it has other great countries around it that are very clean as well like Finland, Norway, Switzerland, and Denmark. By far this area of the world is the cleanest in trash, crime, and just being beautiful.

America could learn some things from Sweden, Iceland, and Finland. Just saying. Sweden is a very beautiful place and I would love to visit there for a long time in the future

Sweden is the cleanest, and so perhaps are it's neighbours. Except Finland, that dirty dump doesn't deserve to be mentioned in this list.

Sweden is so clean. The air is fresh and many trees. It is a fascinating country and I hope to live there someday.

3 Denmark Denmark is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the most populous and politically central constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the North Atlantic Ocean. European Denmark is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, lying southwest of Sweden, south of Norway, and north of Germany. ...read more.

Denmark is a very clean country. They have trashbins all over the city of Copenhagen & we saw people hired to collect trash many times - Both in the city, stations and parks.. So good!

Greenland is a part of Denmark and the actual Denmark is well kept itself.

Where is the garbage? I can't see it ;

How is Italy behind this.

4 Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude (137 kilometres or 85 miles) north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bordering the Strait of Malacca to the west, the Singapore Strait to the south, the South China Sea to the east and the Straits of Johor to the north. The country's territory is composed of one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet, the combined area of which has increased by 25% since the country's independence as a result of extensive land reclamation projects. It has the third highest population density in the ...read more.

Singapore has some of the toughest regulations about littering, sanitation, and environmental concern. I can see why Singapore is quite clean, even my father who is a Singaporean is particularly strict about cleanness both at home or when we are out. Although its cleanest hasn't reached any European cities' or even Japan's level of cleanness.

Singapore is the cleanest country anywhere you should read the law book if you don't agree. we watched someone get arrested for throwing gum on the ground and taking durian onto a train!

Really? Are you kidding me?
Singapore is like the World's most cleanest country.

Even though I'm from Singapore, you HAVE to see the laws of Singapore. I'm not being bias.

Partially clean when it comes to an issue where pollution is commonly existent in the City State. However they are able to restrict certain aspects of throwing rubbish and chewing gum than can result to hefty fines

5 Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. ...read more.

Every inch of the country is so spotless, even the water is so clean and so clear like crystals. The environment looks so pristine and flawless, even there was an article from the magazine I have read that suggested everyone who want to improve their body health to go to Switzerland for vacation. There are so many researches and reports said that Switzerland is the cleanest country on earth with the best environmental records.

I traveled Switzerland a while back and everything was so clean, it was quite a shock for me personally because I knew it would be clean but not that clean. Public transport and roads are clean, water is clean, bathrooms are clean. They have a very good waste removal system for recycling

I have visited Switzerland, and found it very clean. No garbage anywhere. I didn't notice people peeing in the footpath even once (unlike here in India). It is ridiculous that Switzerland is ranked 10th, while India is ranked No. 2.

It's so clean because even the money is laundered.

No really, the nature is pretty impressive, and the country has no big-scale industry.

6 Austria Austria was Celtic (Hallstadt) then as Noricum, part of the Roman Empire, Alaric, who took over Rome, studied at a monastery near Vienna. In the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Emperors moved to Vienna, then Austria became separate. Medieval documents from Eastern Europe as far as West Ukraine were often ...read more.

Vienna is so clean even though it's a capital, also they literally mop/sweep all of the roads. If you litter you will be attacked by about 100 people

In my opinion Austria is the most beautiful and cleanest country of the world.

7 India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country (with over 1.2 billion people), and the most populous democracy in the world. Its capital is New Delhi. Some other major cities are Mumbai, Chennai, and Ahemdabad. The most spoken languages are Hindi and English, but there are 22 official Indian languages.

The capital Delhi is one of the most polluted cites in the world. The air quality exceeds 84.39 µg/m3 with the growing population. Some people complain about irritation to their eyes and throat. And of course it's the poor people living in the slums who suffer the most having to work outside next to the open sewers.

India is very clean country but some places are dirty because the pollution are come in the India compare to other countries...

Love my land... Though some efforts are yet to make... But because of the new revolution on cleanliness we are expected to get the top by 2019

India is a very secular, prosperous and a clean country.

8 Canada Canada is a country in North America that is next to the United States, and it's the 2nd largest country in the world by area (size is 9.985 million km²). This country has 10 provinces, and 3 territories. Canada became a dominion on July 1, 1867. Its 10 provinces are: Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, ...read more.

Canada is by far the cleanest country in the world, this is mainly because of the way Canadians think and how much they want to keep there country clean. But of course if you go into Toronto or Montreal there will be trash and grime in certain areas, but you expect that in every major city around the world

Cleaner then idiot america. I am a canadian and I think canada sweden germany and australia is better then the united states.

I've seen people in Canada stop what they were doing, and clean up trash from the floor. It's pretty clean alright.

Because of Calgary which is the cleanest country in the world!

9 France France, officially the French Republic, is a sovereign state comprising territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European part of France, called metropolitan France, extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. France spans 675,000 km2 (251,000 mi2) and has a total population of 67 million (data from 2017). ...read more.

The less clean are Paris and Nice (the 2 most touristic places they both gather more than 47 million visitors per year), Paris is not the largest Capital city by far and Nice only 800,000 inhabitants. And that only in few quarters, all the villages (stunning middle age ones) are all clean and landscape is also clean as well as the so numerous hiking trails, castles, churches, beaches (more than 40,000 km of coast)...

Well, it's really cleaner than we were excepted, even cleaner that most of European countries we have visited, especially Southern and Eastern Europe. Maybe the only place a bit dirty is the touristic Paris. But as soon you leave the touristic areas of Paris, it's really clean. The country side, villages, ocean coast are without any trash.

France is a clean country, large cities, especially Paris and Nice (the most touristic ones) are the less clean, because of the high density of population (Paris is the most densely populated European capital city). All the rest of France, cities, villages, country side, beaches are clean.

Paris is has the highest population density capital city, so it cannot be as clean as a village, and if you have time to visit the non crowded areas and streets you will discover a clean Paris. All the other 36,000 cities and villages are clean as well as the splendid scenery.

10 Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France to the south. Its capital, Luxembourg City, is one of the four official capitals of the European Union (together with Brussels, ...read more.
The Contenders
11 Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland across Estonia to the south. Finland covers an area of 338,455 square kilometres (130,678 sq mi) with a population of 5.5 million. Helsinki is the capital and largest city, forming a larger metropolitan area with the neighbouring cities of Espoo, Kauniainen, and Vantaa. The vast majority of the population are ethnic Finns; Finnish, alongside Swedish, are the official languages. Finland's climate varies from humid continental in the south to the boreal ...read more.

Finland is in the top 5 over 75% of Finland is forest and it is growing every year it invests heavily in renewables, England's forests have been obliterated, India has serious problems with pollution, China releases over 3.8 billion tonnes of coal into the atmosphere each year, France has done nuclear testing, the oil industry in Canada destroys its forest and natural beauty, columbia has massive slums. This list is a joke

I have been there! It's the best. Finland has the kindest people in the world.

This list is a joke, Finland belong at least to top ten.

My vote is for Finland

12 United States The United States of America, or the U.S.A. for short, is a federal republic composed of 50 states, 48 of them are contiguous states. There are two other states, Alaska and Hawaii, which are north and south of the contiguous states, respectively. The United States declared its independence from the British Empire in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. They won their independence in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris. Its capital, Washington D.C. (District of Columbia) is defined by imposing neoclassical monuments and buildings including the iconic ones that house the federal government's 3 branches: the Capitol, White House and Supreme Court. Though it has no official language, English and ...read more.

The problem is that people in the US are more individualistic than people of Japan. This means that in Japan, people love their country so much they do whatever to keep it clean. America is different.

However, individualism and freedom in America are no longer as extreme as maybe in 1900. If you think America is dirty today, you should see us in 1900. In 1900, pollution was a huge issue along with crowded tenements, migration crisis (immigrants were literally flooding this place faster than we could handle them), lack of a sewage system (so the streets were really dirty), and all sorts of corruption problems.

If you don't like the politics today, get in a time machine and go back to 1900, and you'll appreciate America for what it has today.

It is perhaps hard to comment generally on the USA's cleanliness because it is so vast and different states have a different attitude to cleanliness. LA is by far one of the dirtiest and most disappointing places I have visited within the US. I felt mucky all the time I was there, which to say it has some of the most affluent inhabitants is remarkable! New York however should feel awash with the city's pollution and dirt, and in fairness there is a garbage problem but it doesn't feel as murky as LA or Las Vegas for example. The East Coast - places like Bar Harbour feel very clean and their councils take great pride in the appearance and overall cleanliness, but other states like Michigan, Nebraska feel generally like more attention could be paid to things like refuse, garbage and how the shop fronts appear for example. Texas is polar in appearance - from really poor to really affluent depending on which part you go to. Not the cleanest country though generally!

More better roads and streets. Beautiful houses whenever I pass to their houses, I can see Beautiful garden and arranged things.. Very clean country too, and intelligent people.. I am American and born in NJ. Everywhere I go to New York City is very clean USA is way cleaner than Mexico. I would to visit European Countries there Clean like Canada and USA The best USA Deserves to be on this list.

Although USA is dirty now, but soon probably in 2040 or 2050, USA will become one of the cleanest countries in the world. Despite the power of the US, there will be less pollution.
Now some cities like Portland, Miami, Honolulu, Chicago, San Francisco, Boise and many more are one of the cleanest cities in the world.

13 United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly shortened to United Kingdom, UK or Britain is a Sovereign State located of the Northwestern coast of Europe. It is a Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy currently lead by Monarch Queen Elizabeth II and its current prime minister is Boris Johnson. The UK is a Unitary State consisting of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is currently a member state of the European Union, but as of 2016 has start the withdrawal process, and is set to leave the Union in October 2019. ...read more.
14 Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia in the Pacific Ocean. It lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland (east of China, Korea, Russia) and stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and near Taiwan in the southwest.

Japan has a huge capital city called Tokyo, other cities in Japan include Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Osaka, Nagoya and Sendai. It's close to South Korea, which is on the North West of it. It has a large population of 126.86 million people (Statistics Bureau of Japan. Retrieved April 27, 2016). ...read more.

I come from Japan but I like in Australia. The first time I came here I was like to my mum - is this really Australia? It looks more like a junkyard.
Well, I got used to the Australian culture, and I go back to Japan. Then I go " what is this! It's so clean! "
Literally, I go to have a bath, and when I hop in the bathtub it goes "squeak! "
My grandma probably scrubbed it until it got scratched!

Japan is so clean and comfortable, you don't even have to worry about your possessions getting dirty anywhere! their public toilets are extremely clean except maybe in tourist sites such as in Dotonbori in Osaka where the public toilet is a bit smelly and dirty, which are probably due to the tourists that visit there. Other than that the whole country is very very clean!

By far the cleanest country I have visited, and I am well travelled. Japan has a thought process and code which engenders cleanliness. It is unquestionably unacceptable to be untidy and unclean for example so everything tends to follow suit. It is a great place for anyone with OCD!

More better roads and streets. Beautiful houses whenever I pass to their houses, I can see Beautiful garden and arranged things.. Strict country too, and intelligent people..

15 Germany Germany was formally united in 1871 under the initiative of Bismarck with King Wilhelm of Prussia as emperor. The previous 'Holy Roman Empire', basically a continuation of the empire of Charlemagne/Karl der Grosse was dissolved in 1806.

Some territory was lost after World War 1 and a lot more after World War 2, basically started by Hitler's Nazi dictatorship. Then the Soviets kept their zone - the 'DDR', East Germany, separate with a wall through the middle of Berlin, until 1990 when the country was reunited. ...read more.

Shame in you people to put Germany at number I while India number 2. You don't seem to know what real beauty and cleanest are.

I am from Germany and can tell you that the city of Hamburg is going to be car free by 2020.

Germany is one of the most developed countries and it is too beautiful.

They use more renewable energy than any other country on Earth.

16 Iceland Iceland is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its surrounding areas) is home to over 65% of the population. Iceland is the only part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that ...read more.

Why is this 12 this should be number 1 it is the cleanest country in the world and it's so beautiful but is low the population and young beautiful people too!

Iceland is more than beautiful! It has 100% clean water and almost no one is smoking!

The population of Iceland is really low, which makes it a really clean country.

Iceland is one of the cleanest places I've ever seen!

17 New Zealand New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It is situated 1,500 kilometres (900 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland.

New Zealand is clean its definitely cleaner than France, France is pretty dirty now New Zealand is clean not many people roaming round and smoking but when I went to France lots of people were smoking they didn't even look round to se if there were any children.

I think people are just voting for their own countries. How are countries like China and India above New Zealand?

New Zealand is the greatest and magnificent country in my experience!

New Zealand is a very pretty country with some of the cleanest swatter, and I am Lithuanian.

18 Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of 7,617,930 square kilometres (2,941,300 sq mi), Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and ...read more.

Very clean EXCEPT for a few things:

1) The Fires from the Government napalming entire sections of bush due to the civil war, combined with the literally hundreds of factories all over West Australia and South Australia, have made both of those states have pretty bad air quality compared with the rest of the island, Australian Capital Territory also has a ton of factories, so their air quality is also horrendous.

2) Protests will leave the streets completely torn apart by Government gunfire and airstrikes, and sine Melbourne is the city where all the protests usually take place, this means Melbourne is about a scale of "pretty dirty" to just plain nasty about once every year.

The good things:

Some of the cleanest streets in the world, though we aren't like North Korea. We're pretty out in the open with our government's totalitarianism, and we're basically like Syria and Russia in those respects, so the streets are pretty well..used...walked on...I guess you ...more

Ok I just have to sa that Australia cannot be considered below Japan in this listing. I do have a biased opinion, being Australian, but we are a very clean people.
We have amazingly harsh (but great) cigarette laws that have cut smoking rates in half in recent times. We also have almost 0 pollution in our cities. The closest thing we had was a dust storm that came through Sydney almost 10 years ago. We also do not have dirty high-rise apartments that destroy our skyline and become homes to trash. Most Aussies live in stand-alone dwellings which invoke a sense of pride and cleanness. Look at an aerial photo of any Aussie city an you'll see what I mean.

Australia is a continent first before it is a country.
Australia is huge with very small population of wealthy, beautiful, and sexy anglo-saxons who are blessed with this beautiful continent. Aussies have done an excellent job but they need to make sure their environment and landscape stays pristine and beautiful.

The strict immigration laws is one of the reasons the continent is still underdeveloped, which is why it is still beautiful in its organic and natural beauty.
God bless the Aussies and their commitment for a greener, cleaner and sexy continent.

CLEAN. I go here every year, the beaches? Clean. Cities slightly dirty but highly clean
Trains? Clean, train stations? Clean!

19 Moldova Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised breakaway region of Transnistria lies across the Dniester on the country's eastern border with Ukraine. Moldova's ...read more.
20 Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, and the Adriatic Sea to the southwest. Slovenia is mostly mountainous and forested, covers 20,271 square kilometres (7,827 sq mi), and has a population of 2.1 million (2,108,708 people). Slovenes constitute over 80% of the country's population. Slovene, a South Slavic language, is the official language. Slovenia has a predominantly continental climate, with the exception of the Slovene Littoral and the Julian Alps. A sub-mediterranean climate reaches to the northern extensions of the Dinaric Alps that traverse ...read more.

Slovenia seems to be completely overlooked in most of these lists since they are based on people voting (hence India being fourth here at the time I write this) But any legitimate list will tell you it is undoubtedly one of the cleanest countries on the planet.

21 Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine and Belarus to the east; and the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) and Lithuania to the north. With a population of approximately 38.5 million people, Poland is the sixth most populous member state of the European Union. Poland's capital and largest metropolis is Warsaw. Other major cities include Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin. It is currently led by President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. ...read more.
22 Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country, covering approximately 600,000 square kilometres (230,000 sq mi), and has a population of around 40 million people. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast; by Belarus to the north; by Poland, Slovakia, and ...read more.
23 Serbia Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, North Macedonia to the south, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west, and Montenegro to the southwest, and claiming a border with Albania through the disputed territory of Kosovo. Serbia with Kosovo has about 8.6 million inhabitants. Its capital Belgrade is also the largest city.

Beautiful clean country.

Clean and beatiful. I was had no words when I was come there. Perfectland is Serbia's nickname, by me!

It is so clean!

24 England England, previously the Kingdom of England, is a constituent country of the United Kingdom along with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. ...read more.

Compared to places like India really... England should not be this far down, but then to be fair there is a real split between the really nice areas and the really bad ones if people have looked at the bad ones then they will have thought it was vile! Parts of Central London for example are really dirty especially when the bin men are on strike! But then go to the Cotswolds and it's a different thing altogether!

Depends where you are in england, my water comes from one of the UKs cleanest rivers. When you visit the rivers up in the moors it is very transparent, although our water has more iron and less calcuim than it should have.

Um, England is not a country! It is a country in the United Kingdom, get it? That is TRUE!

England is the cleanest countryI have seen. Cleaner than USA and India by far.

25 Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation (RF), is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world by area, covering over 17,125,191 square kilometres (6,612,073 sq mi), and encompassing one-eighth of Earth's inhabitable landmass. Russia extends across eleven time zones and borders sixteen sovereign nations, the most of any country in the world. It is the ninth-most populous country and the most populous country in Europe, with a population of 145.5 million. The country's capital and largest city is Moscow, the largest city entirely within Europe. Saint Petersburg is Russia's cultural centre and second-largest city. Other major urban areas ...read more.

You'll be arrested if you spit gum on the ground or throw paper.

It is a very clean country!

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