The eleventh esctoday.com TOP TEN list continues today with the places no. 1 being announced. As revealed on Saturday, this week's topic are the TOP TEN most successful countries.

The ranking will feature countries that have taken part more than five times, i.e. in more than 10% of the editions of the contest held so far. It will be based on the average relative placing (i.e. the place in the contest compared to the number of participants) a country has achieved since its debut until today. Rules are:

• Semi final results and final results are counted separately.
• The qualifiying rounds of 1993 and 1996 will not be considered.
• In the case of a tie, the country that won more often compared to its participations gets the higher place in the ranking.

An example:

The countries x took part in the contest three times and finished 4th out of 12, 4th out of 16 and 10th out of 20. The average relative placing for x is 36/100, which equals a 9th place among 25 contestants. All average placings will be given compared to 25 countries competing as this is the current number of finalists every year.

So we continue…

No. 1 – Ukraine

Ukraine's average relative placing since the country's debut in 2003 equals an 7.47th place among 25 contestants.

Ukraine took part in the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in 2003 and achieved its second worst result ever finishing 14th. The only time Ukraine finished lower was in 2005 on homeground with Greenjolly, who came 19th in the final.

All other Ukrainian entries were either in the top ten or very close to it. In 2004, Ruslana won the contest with Wild dances and in 2007 and 2008 second places were achieved by Verka Serduchka and Ani Lorak repsectively. Ukraine therefore finished in the top two during 5/13 (38.5%) of their participations (including semi finals) even outdoing the United Kingdom, which reached the top two remarkable 20 times out of 53 times competing (37.7%).

First victory – Ruslana performs Wild dances in Istanbul:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXgaOTOCSuU

Tomorrow, we will show the following full rankings:

• All countries with more than five participations
• All countries regardless of their number of participations
• All countries per decade
• Full ranking without excluding the results in the semi finals
• Full ranking in the years of jury voting
• Full ranking in the years of televoting