FIFA women's world rankings

The FIFA Women's World Rankings for football were introduced in 2003, with the first rankings published in March of that year, as a follow-on to the existing FIFA World Rankings for men. They attempt to compare the strength of internationally active women's national teams at any given time.

The first two points result from the FIFA Women's World Rankings system being based on the Elo football rating system. FIFA considers the ratings for teams with fewer than 5 matches provisional and at the end of the list. Also any team that plays no matches for 18 months becomes unranked.

To date Germany and the United States have been the only two teams to have led the rankings. They have also held the top two spots in all but four releases, when Germany was ranked third: Norway was in second position in the first two rankings until Germany overtook them by winning the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup, and Brazil was ranked second in March and June 2009 until Germany won 2009 Euro and rejoined the top two. No other team has managed to enter the top 2 since then.

The United States holds the record for the longest period being ranked first: almost 7 years, from March 2008 to December 2014.

In the June 2016 ranking, there was no change within the top 13 teams, though there were highlights farther down the rankings, including seven teams reaching all-time high rankings, with Switzerland as the highest among these at 15th. While a total of 99 matches were played in the three months before the June 2016 rankings, the great majority were friendlies, with only Europe and Africa holding continental championship qualifiers. This was a respite from the massive shuffling deep through the rankings seen in the March 2016 rankings, due to 150 matches being played since the past ranking, including an incredible number of matches played in March 2016. The 2016 AFC Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament provided some of the most movement, with Japan dropping 62 points and three places to their lowest ranking since June 2009, while Australia and China combined for nine places increased, China's 12th rank being their highest sine May 2010 and Australia's 5th rank their highest ever. Around those were changes in rank for every team from 4th (England, their highest ever) to 15th, including Canada returning to the top 10 at Norway's expense.

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