Finland ranks world’s happiest country for 7th year in a row

Finland has been ranked as the happiest country in the word for the seventh consecutive year, according to the latest report of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a global initiative of the United Nations published on Wednesday.

As in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, Finland again takes the top spot as the happiest country in the world, said the report published marking the International Day of Happiness.

Another Nordic country Denmark secured the second place on the list, followed by Iceland, Sweden, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Australia.

Afghanistan ranked at the very bottom of the list of 143 countries followed by Lebanon, Lesotho, Sierra Leone and Congo.

Rankings are based on a three-year average of each population’s average assessment of their quality of life, said Sustainable Development Solutions Network in a press release.

Interdisciplinary experts from the fields of economics, psychology, sociology and beyond then attempt to explain the variations across countries and over time using factors such as GDP, life expectancy, having someone to count on, a sense of freedom, generosity and perceptions of corruption.

"The broad country coverage and annual surveys of the Gallup World Poll provide an unmatched source of data about the quality of lives all over the globe. There are now enough years of data, going back to 2006, to enable us this year to plausibly separate age and generational patterns for happiness,” John F. Helliwell, Professor of Economics at the Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia, and a founding Editor of the World Happiness Report.