Sort order for Country field when creating profile

I have looked all over to find some reference for the way to sort the values of the Country list on the join.php  page.

They are sorted alphabetically, but when I go into member Fields builder, and select the country field and then click on Advanced, I see that it is pulling from the Predefined list of Country. So when I edit the predefined list, the vales and order of the countries have no logic, and they are assorted all over the place. The change of the order by using the up/down arrows does not work. Even the default value does not seem to be effective.

I am running 7.0.0 and will be upgrading to 7.0.2 this week . Will it make a difference?

Have tested this in ADMIN with IE7 and Firefox.  All my predefined lists sort alphabetically according to LKey.  So, Country names then display alphabetically in join.php.  Am running D7.0.2, but I don't recall this was a problem in 7.0.

What I would really like is to make several countries like USA, Canada, and others within close proximity to appear at the top. What would I have to alter to change the sort?

If your lists were working properly, using the up/down arrows in predefined lists and saving the new order should do it.  But you say they do not work, which seems to indicate a problem somewhere in your install or database.  You would need to contact someone with that level of problem-solving experience.  Maybe re-post with a specific request for assistance.  It could be a simple thing, like permissions.

BTW, use Firefox for all admin work.  IE and Chrome have display issues in admin.  But if you make admin adjustments in FF and the results are incorrect in the member's browser, then the browser isn't the problem.

Anybody know how i can sort this country field on join page for different languages?

In english its correctly sorted, but when i switch to my local language it isn't. All other country drop downs within dolphin are sorted in any language. So i wonder how to fix the join page?

Bump, even by sorting the country list nothing changes.

Isn't it possible to sort the array variable in the code before it fill the dropdown with it?

 even with 7.0.9 I still cannot get these to show "United States"  for the default selection, I have moved it to the top position, effects nothing in the join form. For that fact, this should change all forms that ask for a country. Like events, groups.. 

There is another thread here which describes how to make a default country for the join form. This is just about the sort order.

http://www.boonex.com/forums/topic/Select-default-country-for-all-dropdown.htm