Finland Named World’s Happiest Country

For the fifth straight year, Finland on Friday has been named as the world’s happiest country, according to World Happiness Report rankings based largely on life evaluations from the Gallup World Poll. This Nordic country and its neighbors such as Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland have also scored well on the measures the report uses to explain its findings: healthy life expectancy, GDP per capita, social support in times of trouble, low corruption and high social trust, generosity in a community where people look after each other and freedom to make key life decisions.

According to the report, Denmark comes in at No. 2 in this year’s rankings, followed by Iceland at No. 3. Sweden and Norway are seventh and eighth, respectively.

On the other hand, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg take places 4 through 6, with Israel coming in at No. 9 and New Zealand rounding out the top 10. Canada (No. 15), the United States (No. 16) and the United Kingdom (No. 17) all made it into the top 20.

As per the World Happiness Report, Afghanistan ranked as the unhappiest, followed closely by Lebanon.

The World Happiness Report, now in its 10th year, is based on people’s own assessment of their happiness, as well as economic and social data. The report also assigns a happiness score on a scale of zero to 10, based on an average of data over a three-year period. Notably, this latest report was completed before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania recorded the biggest boosts in wellbeing. The largest falls in the World Happiness table, released on Friday, came in Lebanon, Venezuela and Afghanistan.