For the sixth year in a row, Finland has been named the happiest country in the world in the annual World Happiness Report, which ranks global happiness in more than 150 countries around the world.
Bangladesh ranked 118 among 137 countries, slipping from 94th position achieved last year. In the latest index, Nepal ranked 78, Pakistan 108, Sri Lanka 112, and India 126 among the neighbouring countries.
Overseen by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the report is released every year in honour of the International Day of Happiness on March 20, reports Forbes.
The ranking of the countries is based on data from sources like the Gallup World Poll, leveraging six key factors – social support, income, health, freedom, generosity and absence of corruption.
This year’s list is similar to past rankings in 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019, with many of the same Nordic countries in the top spots. As with 2022, Denmark once again comes in at number two, followed by Iceland at number three.
The authors of the report said, “The Nordic countries merit special attention in light of their generally high levels of both personal and institutional trust.
“They also had Covid-19 death rates only one-third as high as elsewhere in Western Europe during 2020 and 2021 – 27 per 1,00,000 in the Nordic countries compared to 80 in the rest of Western Europe.”
They continued to say, “Finland continues to occupy the top spot, for the sixth year in a row, with a score that is significantly ahead of all other countries.”
Israel has gone up five points to bump Switzerland out of the number four spot. The Netherlands once again comes in at number five. Some other positive movers in this year’s report include Sweden – up one point to number six – and Norway – up one spot to number seven.
Canada is at number 13 – a two-point increase from last year. The US is also up one spot from last year, coming in at number 15. Belgium is up two spots to number 17. New to this year’s top 20 – Lithuania, which is up more than 30 spots since 2017.
A few countries dropped in their ranking for 2023, including Luxembourg, Ireland, Germany, and the United Kingdom. France fell off the list of the top 20.
Besides the happiest countries in the world, the report also looks at the places where people are the unhappiest. The lowest-ranking countries on the report also happen to be war-torn – Afghanistan and Lebanon.
According to the report, these places also have an average life evaluation that’s more than five points lower (on a scale running from 0 to 10) than the 10 happiest countries.
Rounding out the list of the five unhappiest countries in the world are Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and Congo.
