Finland has been named the happiest place in the world for a fourth year running, in an annual UN-sponsored report.
Denmark was second and Switzerland third. Iceland and the Netherlands completed the top five, while the United States ranked 19th on the list.
The researchers behind the World Happiness Report, now in its ninth year, used Gallup data asking people in 149 countries to rate their own happiness, also taking into account measures such as GDP, social support, personal freedom and levels of corruption to give each nation a happiness score, which is an average of the past three years.
Finland, a small Scandinavian country with a population of around 5.5 million, has used past wins to tout tourism and promote its natural beauty.
It has fared relatively well during the pandemic compared to other European countries, recording 805 total deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
The country deemed the most unhappy in the world was Afghanistan, followed by Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.
There was a “significantly higher frequency of negative emotions” in just over a third of the countries, the report authors said, likely pointing to the effects of the pandemic.
However, things got better for 22 countries. Several Asian countries fared better than they had in last year’s rankings, while China moved to 84th place from 94th.
According to the report, the ten happiest countries are:
1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Switzerland
4. Iceland
5. Netherlands
6. Norway
7. Sweden
8. Luxembourg
9. New Zealand
10. Austria
