What a difference 68 years makes! The most popular country in the world is Germany. Japan is 4th. The United States of America is #8, barely beating out China. Details and complete rankings after the jump.
From CNBC:
Europe’s largest economy, Germany, which has been criticized for not doing enough to help struggling euro zone countries, has topped a poll as the world’s most popular country.
The survey, carried out for the BBC, polled 26,000 people in 25 countries and asked them to rate 16 countries and the European Union as a whole on whether their influence on the world was mainly positive or negative.
Germany came out on top, with 59 percent of survey participants giving it a positive rating. The country moved up three percentage points from its 2012 position. It displaced Japan, which saw its positive rating fall from 58 percent last year to 51 percent, going from first to fourth place.