How MyCountry works

Voting is free

Every country on the planet starts at zero. Pick one on the spinning globe or in the list and vote. You get one free vote per crown, per day — seven free votes in total, refreshed 24 hours after you use them. No account, no email.

We recognise a returning voter from a salted fingerprint of the connection, not from a stored identity: enough to enforce the daily limit, not enough to identify anyone.

The seven crowns

“Best country” is an argument nobody wins, so there are seven separate boards. A country can be 90th overall and still rule the food crown.

• 👑Ruler of the World
  Which country is the greatest, all things considered?
• 🚀Startup Overlord
  Which country builds the best startups?
• 🍜Emperor of Food
  Which country has the best food on Earth?
• ⚽Football King
  Which country lives and breathes football?
• 🏞️Keeper of Nature
  Which country has the most beautiful nature?
• 🎵Sound of the World
  Which country makes the best music?
• 😂Funniest Nation
  Which country is the funniest on the internet?

Crowns are bought, one country at a time

The vote ranking is earned. The crown is bought — and it is per country: every one of the 194 countries has its own auction, and each starts at $1. Crowning a country puts a badge over it on the globe with your logo, your name and your message, plus a link that scrolls in the ticker on the front page.

The next bid on a country is always the current amount plus 10%, and at least $1 more. Countries are independent: someone paying $200 for one country does not change what any other country costs.

Bids are final and non-refundable. If someone bids higher, the crown moves to them and your bid stays in the public bid history on that country’s page. Nothing about bidding touches the vote ranking — buying a crown never adds a single vote, and the seven crown titles above are decided by votes alone.

One exception to “final”: if the amount actually paid is below the minimum (the payment page lets you edit it), the bid takes nothing and is refunded automatically.

Every click your link receives is counted and shown publicly on the country page, so the next bidder can see what the spot is worth.

About the starting votes

When the site launched, every country was given a batch of starting votes so that no board began at zero and no country looked abandoned on day one. Those opening votes are marked as such in our database and are counted separately from real ones — what you add from here is a real person’s vote, and that is the number we watch.

Is this serious?

No. It measures enthusiasm and nothing else. It is not an index of quality of life, safety, economy or anything a real institution would publish. It exists so people can argue about their homelands in public and share the scoreboard.