Ranked: happiest countries in the world 2021

Finland tops the rankings of the happiest countries in the world for the fourth year running

Happiness is a nebulous thing; hard to grasp and harder to hold onto. Scientists, economists and philosophers have defined it through the ages as a combination of different things, among them health, wealth, companionship and security.

Various indices attempt to rank the happiest countries in the world on an annual basis. The UN-sponsored World Happiness Report from the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) is particularly interesting as it ranks 149 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be.

The SDSN employs an international group of economists, neuroscientists and statisticians to survey citizens on their subjective wellbeing to produce a comprehensive annual list of the happiest countries in the world.

Happiness during a year like no other

The 2021 World Happiness Report had the unique challenge of trying to make sense of the relationship between subjective well-being and Covid-19.

Mental health is one of the casualties both of the pandemic and of the ensuing lockdowns. When the pandemic struck, there was a large and immediate decline in mental health in many countries around the world.

“We need urgently to learn from Covid-19. The pandemic reminds us of our global environmental threats, the urgent need to cooperate, and the difficulties of achieving cooperation in each country and globally. The World Happiness Report 2021 reminds us that we must aim for wellbeing rather than mere wealth, which will be fleeting indeed if we don’t do a much better job of addressing the challenges of sustainable development.”
– Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, President of SDSN

SDSN highlights that its rankings are not an index like the longer running Human Development Index (HDI) and more recent Happy Planet Index (HPI). These are often influenced by sponsors and draw only partly on self-assessment – or make no use of it at all.

SDSN emphasises that its findings draw heavily on data from population samples in each country, using a life evaluation survey to produce subjective wellbeing data.

The report principally relies on asking a straightforward, subjective question of more than 1,000 people in each country:

Imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top.
The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?

That is not to say the report is without a scientific basis. Economic and social factors are considered along with the survey (namely GDP per capita, social support, life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity and perceptions of corruption), but the focus is on how happy citizens say they are; not how happy statisticians think they should be.

Top 10 happiest countries

Once again, Finland is named the happiest country in the world. Rounding out the rest of the top 10 are countries that have consistently ranked among the happiest.

Finland
Denmark
Switzerland
Iceland
Netherlands
Norway
Sweden
Luxembourg
New Zealand
Austria

happiest countries in the world lead image 2020 — DENIS BELITSKY/SHUTTERSTOCK Finland remains the world’s happiest country

The geography of happiness

Unsurprisingly, there is a strong correlation between unhappiness and the poorest and most dangerous countries. Nine of the top 10 happiest countries are European nations with only New Zealand from outside Europe.

The UK is ranked 17th, down from 13th last year, while the USA is ranked 19th, down one place from last year.

The report highlighted that there was a “significantly higher frequency of negative emotions” in over a third of the countries, likely due to the effects of the pandemic.

However, happiness did improve for 22 nations. Numerous Asian countries fared better than last year’s ranking, including China which moved up to 84th from 94th place.

Troubled Afghanistan is still ranked the unhappiest country in the world. The rest of the bottom five comprise Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Botswana and Lesotho.

Happiest countries in the world 2021 – complete rankings

The World Happiness Report compiles data from the last three years of available surveys. The overall happiness scores are calculated from the average of the six factors mentioned above.

Rank	Country	Score
1	Finland	7.842
2	Denmark	7.620
3	Switzerland	7.571
4	Iceland	7.554
5	Netherlands	7.464
6	Norway	7.392
7	Sweden	7.363
8	Luxembourg	7.324
9	New Zealand	7.277
10	Austria	7.268
11	Australia	7.183
12	Israel	7.157
13	Germany	7.155
14	Canada	7.103
15	Ireland	7.085
16	Costa Rica	7.069
17	UK	7.064
18	Czech Rep.	6.965
19	USA	6.951
20	Belgium	6.834
21	France	6.690
22	Bahrain	6.647
23	Malta	6.602
24	Taiwan	6.584
25	UAE	6.561
26	Saudi Arabia	6.494
27	Spain	6.491
28	Italy	6.483
29	Slovenia	6.461
30	Guatemala	6.435
31	Uruguay	6.431
32	Singapore	6.377
33	Kosovo	6.372
34	Slovakia	6.331
35	Brazil	6.330
36	Mexico	6.317
37	Jamaica	6.309
38	Lithuania	6.255
39	Cyprus	6.223
40	Estonia	6.189
41	Panama	6.180
42	Uzbekistan	6.179
43	Chile	6.172
44	Poland	6.166
45	Kazakhstan	6.152
46	Romania	6.140
47	Kuwait	6.106
48	Serbia	6.078
49	El Salvador	6.061
50	Mauritius	6.049
51	Latvia	6.032
52	Colombia	6.012
53	Hungary	5.992
54	Thailand	5.985
55	Nicaragua	5.972
56	Japan	5.940
57	Argentina	5.929
58	Portugal	5.929
59	Honduras	5.919
60	Croatia	5.882
61	Philippines	5.880
62	South Korea	5.845
63	Peru	5.840
64	Bosnia & Herz.	5.813
65	Moldova	5.766
66	Ecuador	5.764
67	Kyrgyzstan	5.744
68	Greece	5.723
69	Bolivia	5.716
70	Mongolia	5.677
71	Paraguay	5.653
72	Montenegro	5.581
73	Dominican Rep.	5.545
74	North Cyprus	5.536
75	Belarus	5.534
76	Russia	5.477
77	Hong Kong	5.477
78	Tajikistan	5.466
79	Vietnam	5.411
80	Libya	5.410
81	Malaysia	5.384
82	Indonesia	5.345
83	Congo (Rep)	5.342
84	China	5.339
85	Ivory Coast	5.306
86	Armenia	5.283
87	Nepal	5.269
88	Bulgaria	5.266
89	Maldives	5.198
90	Azerbaijan	5.171
91	Cameroon	5.142
92	Senegal	5.132
93	Albania	5.117
94	North Macedonia	5.101
95	Ghana	5.088
96	Niger	5.074
97	Turkmenistan	5.066
98	Gambia	5.051
99	Benin	5.045
100	Laos	5.030
101	Bangladesh	5.025
102	Guinea	4.984
103	South Africa	4.956
104	Turkey	4.948
105	Pakistan	4.934
106	Morocco	4.918
107	Venezuela	4.892
108	Georgia	4.891
109	Algeria	4.887
110	Ukraine	4.875
111	Iraq	4.854
112	Gabon	4.852
113	Burkina Faso	4.834
114	Cambodia	4.830
115	Mozambique	4.794
116	Nigeria	4.759
117	Mali	4.723
118	Iran	4.721
119	Uganda	4.636
120	Liberia	4.625
121	Kenya	4.607
122	Tunisia	4.596
123	Lebanon	4.584
124	Namibia	4.574
125	Palestinian Territories	4.517
126	Myanmar	4.426
127	Jordan	4.395
128	Chad	4.355
129	Sri Lanka	4.325
130	Swaziland	4.308
131	Comoros	4.289
132	Egypt	4.283
133	Ethiopia	4.275
134	Mauritania	4.227
135	Madagascar	4.208
136	Togo	4.107
137	Zambia	4.073
138	Sierra Leone	3.849
139	India	3.819
140	Burundi	3.775
141	Yemen	3.658
142	Tanzania	3.623
143	Haiti	3.615
144	Malawi	3.600
145	Lesotho	3.512
146	Botswana	3.467
147	Rwanda	3.415
148	Zimbabwe	3.145
149	Afghanistan	2.523

Top 10 happiest cities

Last, the happiness report ranked individual cities by residents’ perception of their own well-being. Unsurprisingly, Finland’s capital Helsinki was in first place.