Best places to live

A while back Guy Kawasaki published a post about the 20 happiest countries in the world. The list was based on a study by Adrian G. White, a psychologist at the University of Leicester.

The meta-analysis is based on the findings of over 100 different studies around the world, which questioned 80,000 people worldwide. For this study data has also been analysed in relation to health, wealth and access to education.

The research found that capitalism is not necessarily “making” people unhappy, a belief that is often stated. In fact what the study confirmed that in countries where the basic needs as defined by Maslow were met people were happy.

people in countries with good healthcare, a higher GDP per captia, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy

So the twenty happiest countries are:

1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada
11. Ireland
12. Luxembourg
13. Costa Rica
14. Malta
15. The Netherlands
16. Antigua and Barbuda
17. Malaysia
18. New Zealand
19. Norway
20. The Seychelles

Other interesting results USA (23), Germany (35), UK (41), France (62), China (82), Japan (90), India (125) and Russia (167). The three least happy countries were Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Burundi. I don’t see Australia listed but we can’t be too far below New Zealand!

There is a nice map of happiness for the visual learners, like me.

UPDATE: As an interesting side note the top Twitter users don’t seem to be in the top 20 happiest countries