On the occasion of ‘International Day of Happiness’ on Monday, annually observed on March 20, ‘World Happiness Report’ unveiled its 11th edition this year, announcing European nation Finland as the ‘most happy’ among its peers for the sixth consecutive year.
Published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the report showed Finland scored “significantly ahead of all other countries” in the ranking, with Denmark and Iceland grabbing the next two spots respectively.
The report considered factors including income, health, emotional support, freedom of choice, generosity and the absence of corruption to map life evaluation as it sought to curate the list. On that basis, the countries were ranked from top to bottom on a three year average between 2020-2022.
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| These were the top ten countries on World Happiness Report 2023: |
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Finland Denmark Iceland Israel Netherlands Sweden Norway Switzerland Luxembourg New Zealand |
Israel and New Zealand were the only two non-European countries to feature in the top 10 list. Israel climbed five spots from last year to secure fourth position.
While India’s neighbour Nepal featured at 78, China at 64, and Pakistan at 108, India itself fared poorly, stationed at 126. Bangladesh was seven spots above India while Sri Lanka, five places above Bangladesh at 112.
The United States was in the 15th spot this time and the war raged Ukraine was positioned at 92.
At 137, Taliban ruled Afghanistan stood in the list at the last spot, faring as the ‘most unhappy’ nation as per the report.
