World Happiness Report: Switzerland ranks 9th, Finland ranks 1st – News

  • The UN World Happiness Report determines which country people are happiest in.
  • Switzerland is in 9th place in the current edition – and has therefore slipped down the rankings.
  • The country with the happiest population is Finland for the seventh year in a row.

The top positions are again largely occupied by countries from the north. Finland was followed by Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Israel. In last year’s report, Switzerland came in 8th place. Still in 4th place in 2022.

Germany made a significant move downwards and slipped from 16th place to 24th place. In the list, the largest countries are no longer among the happiest 20 – the USA also went down: 23rd place instead of last place 15th. Overall, the ranking includes 143 countries.

The 20 happiest countries


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

In the report, the scientists looked at the period between 2021 and 2023. Subjective assessments of the lives of the population living in the country were evaluated.

“It’s more of a feeling of satisfaction”

The happiness researchers did not go into detail in the report about exactly what makes the Finns happier than all other peoples on earth. However, they have identified a number of key factors that generally make people happier, such as social support, income, freedom and the absence of corruption.

“So it’s not necessarily happy in the sense of jumping up and down, being happy in the moment. It’s more of a feeling of satisfaction. “I think that’s an important point,” said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve of the German Press Agency, one of the authors of the World Happiness Report. The fact is that people in Scandinavian countries rate their own lives very highly in these points and are satisfied.

Legend:

Shopping spree in Helsinki: People in Finland are happiest, according to the UN report.

Getty Images/Takimoto Marina/SOPA Images/LightRocket

Global happiness inequality has increased by more than 20 percent across all regions and age groups over the past twelve years. According to the World Happiness Report, the unhappiest country is Afghanistan. There is a difference of around 6 points on the average happiness scale from 0 to 10 between the country of the happiest people, Finland (7.7) and Afghanistan (1.7). Switzerland has a value of 7.06 on the scale, which was the figure in the 2023 World Happiness Report still at 7.24.

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