While global peace levels remained stable over the past year, the world is still less peaceful than in 2008, and the number of people killed in conflicts has risen over 3.5 times, according to the Global Peace Index report for 2014.
The annual report, produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, is based on 23 factors including terrorism, military spending and crime. Eighty-one countries have become more peaceful since last year, while conditions in 78 countries have deteriorated.
Violent conflict inflicted a $14.3 trillion cost on the world economy - 13.4 percent of the global GDP, the report found- and the death toll rose from 49,000 in 2010 to 180,000 last year. The group estimated that 20,000 people were killed in terrorist attacks, up from an average of 2,000 per year 10 years ago.
For the first time since the Index began, the Middle East and North Africa are now the world's least peaceful regions, due to the increasing civil unrest and terrorist activity.
Syria ranks at the very bottom as the least peaceful country, followed by Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan and the Central African Republic. Libya, now ranking 149th of 162 countries, suffered the most severe deterioration, while Ukraine suffered the second largest.
Europe was found to be the world's most peaceful region, reaching historically high levels, with 15 of the 20 most peaceful countries located in the region. Iceland, Denmark and Austria were the three most peaceful countries in the world.
The biggest improvements, resulting from the ending of wars with neighbors, came from Guinea-Bissau, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt and Benin.
The U.S. was ranked as the 94th most peaceful country.
"Only two indicators have markedly improved since 2008: UN peacekeeping funding and external conflicts fought," the report said. "The number of deaths from external conflict has fallen from 1,982 to 410 over the last eight years."
Military spending accounted for 43.2 percent of total violence containment expenditure. The U.S. spent by far the most, at over $1.3 trillion, followed by China with $370 billion. Homicide crime and interpersonal violence was the second largest component of violence containment expenditure.
In terms of militarization domain, the worst performing countries were North Korea, Israel, Russia, Syria and the U.S.
