Here's a look at the 11 top women leaders:
- Sirleaf, elected Nov. 8 in Africa's oldest republic, was educated at Harvard University and served as her country's finance minister. First lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, herself mentioned as a possible U.S. presidential candidate in 2008, attended the inauguration in Monrovia.
- Bachelet is a pediatrician and a single mother who was jailed and tortured during Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. A Socialist, she had served as Chile's defense minister.
- Halonen is also a single mother, as well as a lawyer. A former foreign minister, she is heralded for her common touch and her vow to protect Finland's welfare state.
- Merkel is a former physicist who grew up in the former East Germany; she is also the country's first chancellor from that region. She had been a member of parliament and, later, Germany's minister of women's issues.
- Helen Clark, of New Zealand, became the nation's second woman elected prime minister when she won the post in 1999. A former university political-studies professor, she has championed world peace and disarmament.
- Mary McAleese, of Ireland, also followed a female predecessor, Mary Robinson, when she was elected in 1997. Once a college criminal-law professor, she was the first president to come from Northern Ireland.
- Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was elected president of the Philippines in 2001, is the daughter of a former president and was once a student at Georgetown University. She previously headed her country's garments-and-textile export board.
- Begum Khaleda Zia, the first prime minister of Bangladesh, is serving her second term as prime minister. The widow of a president assassinated in 1991 and a grandmother of three, she won her latest election in 2001.
- Vaira Vike-Freiberga became the first woman to head an Eastern European country when she was elected president of Latvia in 1999. Re-elected in 2003, she attended college in Canada and formerly taught at L'Universi de Montreal.
- Luisa Diogo was appointed last year to be the first female prime minister of Mozambique. Formerly the nation's finance minister, she holds a master's degree in economics from the University of London.
- Maria do Carmo Silveira was appointed prime minister of the tiny West African country of Sao Tome and Principe last June after heading the oil-rich nation's central bank.
