It's almost become a national sport in Canada to fret about how the world, particularly Americans, view the great white North. A new poll from social-networking site Badoo has some bad news for image-conscious Canadians: the results say the world ranks us among the least-cool nationalities.

The poll asked 30,000 people in 15 countries to name the coolest nationality. Perhaps to no one's surprise, Americans came in at number one, followed by Brazilians and Spaniards.

Canada, however, ranked among the least-cool nationalities, ranking fourth on that list behind the Belgians, Poles and Turks.

Lloyd Price, Badoo's marketing director, said despite the poll's results, Canadians can take heart in knowing they have given the world some of its coolest inhabitants, from Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell to Jim Carrey and Mike Myers.

And, according to Price, "there are more important things in life than being cool."

"Canada might not be one of the coolest countries in the world but it is one of the most civilized," Price said in a news release issued Wednesday.

"Like the Queen, Canada is so uncool, it's cool. And proud of it."

While some would question the number-one ranking of Americans on the list of the coolest cats, Price said it's virtually inevitable.

"Americans are the dudes who invented 'cool,'" he said. "They still have the coolest leader, Obama; the coolest performers, like Lady Gaga and Jay-Z; and Steve Jobs of Apple, the coolest man in technology, who has even made geeks cool."

But despite its findings, Badoo's poll does not represent that last word on Canada's coolness quotient.

Last year, a three-part global study conducted by the Historica-Dominion Institute found that 72 per cent of respondents think Canada is cool. According to that study, a whopping majority of folks in Spain, Brazil and France, which all ranked in the top 10 in Badoo's poll, think Canada is cool.

According to the Historica-Dominion study:

• 92 per cent of people in France agreed that Canada is cool
• 78 per cent of Brazilians called Canada cool
• 74 per cent of Spaniards think Canada is cool

In a statement also issued Wednesday, the institute pointed out that Canada can keep up with any country when it comes to the cool kids.

"While Canada has its own Jay-Zs and Lady Gagas (maybe you've heard of Justin Bieber, Mr. Price?) it also leads the cutting-edge redefinition of cool with a crop of geek chic Hollywood it-kids like Seth Rogen, Michael Cera and Jay Baruchel and is currently teeming with every kind of star for what is considered one of the world's top film festivals," the institute said in a statement.

"So we're setting the record straight on the ‘chronically uncool' Canada with some stats of our own."