Recently, the 10th edition of the World Happiness Report was released on March 18, 2022. To no surprise, the report identified Finland as the happiest country in the world for the fifth time in a row.

The findings of the World Happiness Report are based on two key ideas – happiness or life evaluation measured through opinion surveys and identifying key elements that determine well-being and life evaluation across countries.

The World Happiness Report is a publication of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. To determine the world’s happiest country, researchers analyzed comprehensive Gallup polling data from 146 countries for the past three years.

In the data, they specifically monitor performance in six particular categories: gross domestic product per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make your own life choices, generosity of the general population, and perceptions of internal and external corruption levels.

This year, three of the Scandinavian nations took the first three spots on the list. Following Finland, Denmark took the second spot. It ranked as the second happiest country in last year’s report as well.

1. Finland

Finland has been named the happiest country in the world

2. Denmark

Denmark has grabbed the second position on the list yet again with a score of 7.6.

3. Iceland

Points on life expectancy, GDP per capita, social support, low corruption, high social trust, generosity, and freedom were some of the factors that made Iceland one of the top three happiest countries in the world.

4. Switzerland

Switzerland stood in fourth place this year and has dropped one spot since the last year’s report.

5. The Netherlands

The Netherlands retained its number five spot in the list with a score of 7.48.

6. Luxembourg

Luxembourg moved two spots up from its number eight ranking in the 2021 report.

7. Sweden

Sweden stood on the seventh spot in this year’s report with a score of 7.3.

8. Norway

Norway dropped two spots down since last year and was placed eighth on the happiest country list this year.

9. Israel

Israel moved up three spots since the previous year.

10. New Zealand

New Zealand made the top 10 list. It did drop by one spot since the previous year however it maintains its happiness index.

Meanwhile, India witnessed a slight improvement in its ranking as it jumped three spots to 136, from 139 a year ago.