Re-ordering of countries

I want to re-order the countries database to place United States at the top of the list. In the Regions tab, I know that I click the ordering column to move it up. But this only works one at a time. Then I must refresh the page, reorder, list all, then do it again. This is VERY time consuming and can takes hours to complete. Is there any way to do this quickly, perhaps by editing the appropriate database? If yes, please advise how this is done.