Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey Named Most Admired People

Michelle Obama holds the bragging rights for being the most admired woman in the world, followed by Oprah Winfrey. The revelation comes as the list for the most admired men and women in the world was released on Wednesday. 

The two women topped the list as the most admired women in the world. The list also includes Angelina Jolie, Queen Elizabeth, Emma Watson, Malala Yousefzai, Peng Liyuan, Hillary Clinton, Tu Youyou, Taylor Swift, Madonna, Angela Merkel, Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra, Ellen Degeneres, Aishwarya Rai, Sushmita Sen, Theresa May, Melania Trump, and Yang Mi.

For the men, Bill Gates tops the list, followed by Barack Obama. The two are followed by Jackie Chan, Xi Jinping, Jack Ma, Narendra Modi, Christiano Ronaldo, Dalai Lama, Lionel Messi, Vladmir Putin, Warren Buffet, Amitabh Bachchan, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Pope Francis, Shahrukh Khan, Imran Khan, Salman Khan, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Andy Lau.

The survey was conducted by YouGov. Bill Gates has topped the list as the world's most admired man every single time YouGov has conducted the survey.

Donald Trump went up by two positions and his wife Melania is a new entrant on the list. Other new entrants are Chinese singer and Xi Jinping's wife Peng Liyuan, Chinese scientist Tu Youyou, Indian actress Sushmita Sen, US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and Indian actor Salman Khan. 

In December, YouGov gathered open-ended nominations from panellists across 41 countries. They simply asked them, "Thinking about people alive in the world today, which man or woman do you most admire?"

These nominations were used to compile a list of the 20 men and 20 women who received the most nominations and were nominated from at least 4 countries. An additional 10 popular local figures were added to the list for individual countries. In January, YouGov  used the lists to poll each of the 41 countries asking two questions: "who do you truly admire?" and "who do you MOST admire?".

In the first question, respondents could make multiple selections while in the second question, they could only make one. The two were combined to a percentage.