For the seventh year in a row, Finland has been named the happiest country in the world in the newly released World Happiness Report.
The World Happiness Report released its annual ranking of the happiest countries on Wednesday, with most of the top spots going to European nations.
The report, published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, draws on data from the Gallup World Poll, which is analyzed by some of the world’s leading well-being researchers.
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The rankings represent an average view of life satisfaction in the respective countries, known as “subjective well-being”.
Finland managed to hold on to first place despite Denmark closing the gap between first and second place significantly.
On the other hand, Afghanistan, which was also in last place in 2023, fell even further due to average happiness. America also saw a decline in perceived quality of life, falling out of the top twenty countries for the first time since the report was published.
How do you measure happiness?
The World Happiness Report’s annual ranking is based primarily on subjective assessments of life compiled over the past three years from the Gallup Global Survey in collaboration with Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Center and the United Nations’ Agency for Sustainable Development.
While the rankings themselves are based only on the answers people give when they are asked to rate their own lives, interdisciplinary experts from economics, psychology and sociology are then called in to process the data and make a ranking based on six key variables.
The variables the report quantifies are income (GDP per capita), average healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom of life choices, generosity and freedom from corruption.
Here is the full list of the twenty happiest countries in the world, according to the report.
Which countries were in the bottom 10?
Looking first at the bottom 10, Afghanistan remains the world’s unhappiest country in a largely unchanged ranking.
134. Zambia
135. Eswatini
136. Malawi
137. Botswana
138. Zimbabwe
139. Congo
140. Sierra Leone
141. Lesotho
142. Lebanon
143. Afghanistan
Which countries were in the top 10?
Overall, this year’s top 10 rankings also remain largely unchanged, especially the top three. However, Denmark was able to equalize the lead over Finland in second place.
1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Iceland
4. Sweden
5. Israel
6. Netherlands
7. Norway
8. Luxembourg
9. Switzerland
10. Australia
