Ghana will begin the New Year and the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations as the continent's fourth-best ranked team.

The Black Stars are 4th in the African placements - just like they finished the previous year - in the first edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking released on Thursday.

Having moved up four places, the Black Stars now have an accumulated point build up of 788, thus 11 more points from the previous ranking and they are behind Ivory Coast, Algeria and Mali in that order.

In the world ranking, the Black Stars are now positioned at 26th from the previous 30th position.

World champions, Spain, start the year as the number one side ahead of Germany and Argentina.

FIFA says only 46 matches were included in the Ranking since the last ranking in December.

And 18 of the games took place in 2012, with the remaining 28 being played in the first half of January 2013.