Happy International day of happiness! It is that time of year again when the World Happiness Report is announced including the list of the happiest countries of 2022. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the report, which uses global survey data to report how people evaluate their own lives in more than 150 countries worldwide. And as you can see; a nordic country has come out on top again.

Yet again, Finland is the happiest country according to the 2022 World Happiness Report by the UN released this week. This is in fact the fifth year in a row Finland is the winner which is very impressive. This report is based on measuring how happy people are and why, and it is interesting to see yet again that all the five Nordic countries are in the top 10 and therefore some of the happiest places on earth. In fact, the Nordic countries have been dominating the top spots in this report for all of the ten years it has been published. Three of the region’s countries have come on top over the past six years: Denmark, Norway and Finland.

The top 20 happiest countries 2022;

1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Iceland
4. Switzerland
5. The Netherlands
6. Luxembourg
7. Sweden
8. Norway
9. Israel
10. New Zealand
11. Austria
12. Australia
13. Ireland
14. Germany
15. Canada
16. United States
17. United Kingdom
18. Czech Republic
19. Belgium
20. France

“The lesson of the World Happiness Report over the years is that social support, generosity to one another, and honesty in government are crucial for well-being,” says Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

So, what makes Finland so happy? It is no surprise that Finland is yet again on the top of the list because it has always ranked very high on the measures of mutual trust. “Research shows that high national ranking on these surveys is not so much about culture. It’s more about how a country’s institutions take care of their people – this leads to higher ratings of life satisfaction,” Aalto University expert Frank Martela says.

For the future, the prospects for happiness will depend on a whole range of factors, including the future course of the pandemic and the scale of military conflict. But an important contribution will come from improvements in the science of happiness. In the tenth anniversary issue of the report, three major promising developments in our ability to measure and explain happiness is celebrated;

• Our new ability to measure the happiness content of printed text, be it in books or social media.
• The relationship between biology and happiness.
• The range of emotions covered in happiness research and importance of calmness, peace, and harmony.

You can read the full 2022 World Happiness Report here.

What do you think of the list and where did your country come on it? 

// Photo credit: Ingrid Opstad