Citing Iowa’s low unemployment rate and nearly nonexistent foreclosure crisis, analysts at CNBC announced today that the Hawkeye State has one of the best business climates in the nation.

In fact, the state’s first-place ranking in “cost of doing business” vaulted Iowa from ninth to fourth place overall in the business network’s national rankings for 2009.

The CNBC ranking system, now in its third year, is based on 40 individual measures placed within 10 categories: Cost of doing business, workforce, quality of life, economy, transportation and infrastructure, technology and innovation, education, business friendliness, access to capital and cost of living. (The categories are weighted based on how often states cited them in their own promotional material, aggregated across all states.)