Factbox: Transparency International's global corruption index

(Reuters) - In Transparency International's 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index, Denmark, Finland and New Zealand tied for first place out of 176 countries - meaning they were perceived to have the lowest levels of state sector corruption. Sweden was fourth with Singapore ranked as fifth.

Germany came in at 13th, one notch better than 2011 and Japan remained at 17. The United States ranked 19th in 2012, up from 24th out of 183 countries in 2011. China ranked 80th after 75th in 2011.

The 2012 index ranks 176 countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. The index assigns scores of between one and 100, 1 being highly corrupt and 100 clean.

Here is a list of the 10 most corrupt nations and the 10 cleanest in reverse order:

MOST CORRUPT:

RANK COUNTRY SCORE

174 Somalia 8

174 North Korea 8

174 Afghanistan 8

173 Sudan 13

172 Myanmar 15

170 Uzbekistan 17

170 Turkmenistan 17

169 Iraq 18

165 Venezuela 19

Burundi, Chad and Haiti are all ranked at 165

LEAST CORRUPT:

RANK COUNTRY SCORE

9 Netherlands 84

9 Canada 84

7 Norway 85

7 Australia 85

6 Switzerland 86

5 Singapore 87

4 Sweden 88

1 New Zealand 90

1 Finland 90

1 Denmark 90

Source: Reuters/Transparency International

(editing by David Stamp)

(Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)