This information comes to you via the World Happiness Report 2015, which sees our young and free nation, abounding in nature’s gifts and girt by not insignificant amounts of water, ranked 10 in the world for overall contentment.
The report measures happiness on a variety of factors, including ‘GDP Per Capita’, ‘Social Support’, ‘Healthy Life Expectancy’, ‘Freedom To Make Life Choices’, ‘Generosity’, ‘Perception Of Corruption’ and the intriguingly vague ‘Everything Else’.
The Top 10 Happiest countries, in order, are:
1. Switzerland
2. Iceland
3. Denmark
4. Norway
5. Canada
6. Finland
7. Netherlands
8. Sweden
9. New Zealand
10. Australia
The sting of knowing that New Zealand beat us (dammit, New Zealand) is soothed slightly by the knowledge that we are still, apparently, happier than the 148 other countries considered in the survey.
The United States comes in at number 15 on the poll, with Britain taking the number 21 spot, and China at number 84. The least happy countries, per the report, are largely situated in Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa.
The report, the third of its type, is published by the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and is pulled together from data gathered by researchers in the fields of economics, psychology, health, public policy and more.
via Fairfax
Photo: Saeed Khan via Getty Images
