For the last five years, Apple held on to the title of the world’s most valuable brand. Then this year, the iPhone maker lost the top spot to Google, according to consultancy  Brand Finance’s Global 500 rankings . As Apple’s brand value tumbled 27% to $107.1 billion in 2016, Google’s increased to $109.5 billion. Amazon, with 53% brand value growth, was close behind at $106.4 billion. Image: Brand Finance Global 500 2017 Eight of the top 10 brands on Brand Finance’s 2017 list are American, reflecting the global dominance of US brands. So where does this leave the rest of the world? Visualizing brands as countries Using Brand Finance’s ranking, cost information website  HowMuch.net  has taken the most valuable brands in selected countries and turned them into a map. Each country is sized to reflect the global value of its biggest brand. After Google, the next most valuable national brand is South Korea’s Samsung, which is in sixth place on the Glob...