Norway has claimed the top spot as the happiest country on Earth, unseating Scandinavian neighbor Denmark, the World Happiness Report found. The report also noted that Germans are happier but Americans are feeling blue.
A strong sense of community sets Nordic countries apart from the restImage: picture-alliance/Zuma Press/A. Widak
Advertisement
If you're happy and you know it
The United Nations has released its World Happiness Report 2017 to coincide with the International Day of Happiness. The results revealed a new number one...
Image: picture-alliance/F. May
New number one
Norway has knocked its Scandinavian neighbor Denmark off top spot in this year’s ranking. Norway has invested its considerable revenues from oil money in the future rather than spending them in the present, thereby avoiding "the boom and bust cycle of many other resource-rich economies," said the report.
Image: Reuters/NTB Scanpix/Nils-Erik Bjoerholt
Sense of community
Nordic countries regularly top the ranking because of their understanding in the common good, according to Meik Wiking, chief executive officer of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. Alongside Norway and Denmark, three more northern nations - Iceland (3), Finland (5) and Sweden (10) - were among the top ten happiest countries.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J.Dresling
European performances
Switzerland (4) and Netherlands (6) were the other European countries to make the top ten. Germany remained in 16th place for the second year in a row, while the United Kingdom advanced four spots to 19th this year.
Image: Fotolia/Paul Schwarzl
Americans getting sadder
In 2007, the USA ranked 3rd among the OECD countries. This year, the country dropped one spot to 14 in the overall ranking, which was produced by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). The reasons are declining social support and increased corruption, said the report.
Image: Getty Images/J. Raedler
Where are the others?
China (79), Russia (49) and Japan (51) were able to move up their listings from last year, while India (122) slipped down this year.
Image: picture alliance /dpa/L.Xianbiao
Wars robbed their happiness
Civil wars in Syria and Yemen have hijacked the happiness of the citizens of both countries, putting their names in the bottom ten least happy nations in the world.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Al-Bakour
Africa in crisis
Eight of the bottom ten countries in the ranking are from Africa. The list rated 155 nations on the basis of six factors -- "caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance." The Central African Republic came out as the least happy country in the world.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/D. Belluz
Bhutan – the initiator
The UN has produced the report each year since 2012 after a proposal by the tiny country secured support. Bhutan wanted to recognize happiness as a universal goal and as a guiding principle for public policies. In the same year, the UN also declared March 20 as the International Day of Happiness. Bhutan is at 97 in this year's ranking, down 13 places from the previous year.
Image: DW/A. André
8 images1 | 8
A new report released Monday has given Norwegians something to celebrate - if they weren't smiling already. The Scandinavian country vaulted three spots to claim the title of world's happiest country according to the latest world Happiness Report released on Monday.
The top four countries scored high on factors that the report says are key to happiness including: "caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance," the report said.
"What works in the Nordic countries is a sense of community and understanding of the common good," Meik Wiking, chief executive officer of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen told the Associated Press. Wiking was not part of Monday's global scientific study.
The report's lead author, John Helliwell, noted that they found it takes more than money to make people feel happy.
"It's the human things that matter. If the riches make it harder to have frequent and trustworthy relationship between people, is it worth it?" said Helliwell, who is also an economist at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
"The material can stand in the way of the human."
Looking for happiness in 2016
04:30
This browser does not support the video element.
Poverty, conflict-hit countries at bottom
Although a sense of community can help people, some amount of money and security are necessary to feel happy. Most of the countries at the bottom of the list are in desperate poverty.
Central African Republic fell to last on the happiness list, joined by Burundi, Tanzania, Syria and Rwanda.
Yemen, a country hit hard by civil war and with millions risking starvation, was also ranked in the bottom ten.
Red, white and feeling blue
Germany stayed in the same spot as last year - coming in 16th on the list under Ireland but above Belgium.
The United States, on the other hand, was 14th on the list ranking, falling down one spot from last year. The report also found that America's happiness score dropped 5 percent over the past decade as people are rating themselves as well happy.
Nicaragua and Latvia's happiness scores increased the most.
The report, which was released to coincide with World Happiness Day, ranks 155 countries. The list has been used by the United Nations since 2012 when Bhutan secured support for a proposal to recognize happiness as a guiding principle for public policies.
