They may be witnessing their global superpower influence decline in the face of challenges from other emerging players on the world stage, but Americans have been voted the world's "coolest nationality" in an international poll.

Social networking site Badoo.com (www.badoo.com) asked 30,000 people across 15 countries to name the coolest nationality and also found that the Spanish were considered the coolest Europeans, Brazilians the coolest Latin Americans and Belgians the globe's least cool nationality.

"We hear a lot in the media about anti-Americanism," says Lloyd Price, Badoo's Director of Marketing. "But we sometimes forget how many people across the world consider Americans seriously cool."

Of course, not all Americans are cool, far from it. Some like Snoop Dogg, Lady Gaga, Samuel L. Jackson, Johnny Depp and Quentin Tarantino are way cooler than others.

Americans, however, are the dudes who invented cool and who still embody it in many fields from music to movies and TV to technology.

"America," says Price, "boasts the world's coolest leader, Obama; the coolest rappers, Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg; and the coolest man in technology, Steve Jobs of Apple, the man who even made geeks cool."

Brazilians are ranked the second coolest nationality in the Badoo poll and the coolest Latin Americans, ahead of Mexicans and Argentinians. The Spanish, in third place, are the coolest Europeans.

The French are voted cooler than the British, and Canadians cooler than the Belgians. This may come as a relief for Canadians, who are sometimes viewed as chronically uncool.

Or, as Michael Ignatieff, the Canadian politician, once put it: "Paris, Texas stands as a metaphor for broken dreams; Paris, Saskatchewan just sounds ridiculous."

THE 10 COOLEST NATIONALITIES

1. Americans

2. Brazilians

3. Spanish

4. Italians

5. French

6. British

7. Dutch

8. Mexicans

9. Argentinians

10. Russians

FIVE LEAST COOLEST NATIONALITIES

1. Belgians

2. Poles

3. Turks

4. Canadians

5. Germans

(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)