US President Barack Obama has been named the most powerful person in the world for a second year in a row by Forbes magazine.

The US president leads it, of course, and then there's the Pope, and Angela Merkel, and Facebook's founder, and other global rainmakers on Forbes' ranking of the world's most powerful people.

The ranking features 71 names, a figure Forbes said it set as a cutoff because there are an estimated 7.1 billion people in the world and thus the ranking works out to one very heavy hitter for every 100 million people.

For the second year in a row, US President Barack Obama led the ranking, with Forbes noting that he won the popular vote, an electoral college majority, and seven of the seven toss-up states in the November election.

Mr Obama faces challenges galore, such as a budget crisis, stubbornly high unemployment, and renewed strife in the Middle East.

"But Obama remains the commander in chief of the world's greatest military and head of the sole economic and cultural superpower - literally the leader of the free world," Forbes said.

The silver medal of power went to Mrs Merkel, the German chancellor, whom Forbes described as the backbone of the 27-member European Union and the person who carries the fate of the euro on her shoulders.

Third place went to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was re-elected to a third term "after a few years swapping posts with Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev," and "officially regains the power that no one believes he truly gave up."

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