If you’re looking to live in one of the happiest countries worldwide, Canada might not be the best pick.
A list of the world’s happiest countries was revealed on Monday and Canada didn’t make the top 10.
The United Nations declared Mar. 20 the International Day of Happiness in July of 2012 and every year since it has released a list of the happiest countries.
This year, Finland ranks first on the list for the sixth consecutive year. Denmark, Iceland and Israel take the next three spots while Canada ranks 13 on the list.
The annual World Happiness Report, based on data from the Gallup World Poll, recognizes the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals and works towards implementing this idea in public policy objectives.
“Our main analysis relates to happiness as measured by life evaluations and emotions, how they have evolved in crisis situations, and how lives have been better where trust, benevolence, and supportive social connections have continued to thrive,” the World Happiness report says.
Happiness rankings are based on average life evaluations and how residents feel as opposed to older metrics like Gross Domestic Product (GDP), household income and unemployment.
The Top 10 Happiest Countries for 2023 are:
- Finland
- Denmark
- Iceland
- Israel
- Netherlands
- Sweden
- Norway
- Switzerland
- Luxembourg
- New Zealand
Nearly a thousand responses are gathered annually for each country, used to construct population representative national averages.
Results are typically based on a three-year average of life evaluations, to enable more precise estimates. The results received a confidence interval of 95 per cent.
