Time Magazine has named German Chancellor Angela Merkel as its Person of the Year.
Others on the shortlist included Donald Trump, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, Black Lives Matter and Caitlyn Jenner.
In reaching its decision, Time says: "Europe's most powerful leader is a refugee from a time and place where her power would have been unimaginable".
It says that her upbringing in a "neither democratic nor a republic" Germany gave her "a rare perspective on the lure of freedom and the risks people will take to taste it".
The magazine also tweeted in German:
Angela Merkel ist TIME Person des Jahres 2015 https://t.co/XuaORv7Kxk pic.twitter.com/7hhXwIPsfE
— TIME.com (@TIME) December 9, 2015
It adds that: "Merkel had already emerged as the indispensable player in managing Europe's serial debt crises; she also led the West's response to Vladimir Putin’s creeping theft of Ukraine".
"The migrant and refugee crisis challenged the principle of open borders. And finally, the carnage in Paris revived the reflex to slam doors, build walls and trust no one".
The publication says that Mrs Merkel stepped in each time.
"Germany would bail Greece out, on her strict terms. It would welcome refugees as casualties of radical Islamist savagery, not carriers of it. And it would deploy troops abroad in the fight against ISIS", it says.
