Finland was ranked the happiest country in the world, according to the World Happiness Report from 2025. The Nordic country scored 7.74 on a scale from 0 to 10. Two other Nordic countries, Denmark and Iceland, followed in second and third place, respectively. The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be. Criticism The index has received criticism from different perspectives. Some argue that it is impossible to measure general happiness in a country. Others argue that the index places too much emphasis on material well-being as well as freedom from oppression. As a result, the Happy Planet Index was introduced, which takes life expectancy, experienced well-being, inequality of outcomes, and ecological footprint into account. Here, Costa Rica was ranked as the happiest country in the world. Afghanistan is the least happy country Nevertheless, most people agree that high levels of poverty, lack of access to food and water, as well as a prevalence of conflict are factors hindering public happiness. Hence, it comes as no surprise that Afghanistan was ranked as the least happy country in the world in 2024. The South Asian country is ridden by poverty and undernourishment, and topped the Global Terrorism Index in 2024.

The first edition of the World Happiness Report was published on April 1, 2012 (omitted from this dataset), with a methodology that ranks countries based on their Happiness Index. Since its release, this report has garnered global recognition and has been issued on a yearly basis, excluding 2014.

Happiness Index is explained by: • Dystopia (adds 1.83 Index score) + residual • GDP per capita • Social support • Healthy life expectancy • Freedom to make life choices • Generosity • Perceptions of corruption.

Dataset provided in .xlsx and .csv formats. For convenience, dataset is provided with and without NULLs.

Possible use cases & questions: Initially the dataset was meant to be used for visualization practice with BI tools, for example, Tableau.

Clean dataset without nulls: 1) “Yearly average Happiness Index change” 2) “Are there countries who’s happiness was increasing for years, but had a sudden drop in recent years?” 3) “Is there a year(s) where the average world happiness decreased compared to last year?” 4) Geo data visualization.

With nulls: 1) Practice dealing with nulls. 2) “Which countries in which year had no ranking?” Deep dive and exploration into possible causes (for example, war, internal conflict, government or policy changes, diseases) via other sources.

Columns: Country – country name. Year – year of the report. Index – Happiness Index score. Rank – country rank according to their Happiness Index score.

Reports used in this dataset: 1. The 2013 World Happiness Report provides rankings of 156 countries based on their happiness index during the period of 2010-2012. Data collected from: https://resources.unsdsn.org/world-happiness-report-2013 2. No report for 2014. 3. The 2015 World Happiness Report provides rankings of 158 countries based on their happiness index during the period of 2012-2014. 4. The 2016 World Happiness Report provides rankings of 157 countries based on their happiness index during the period of 2013-2015. 5. The 2017 World Happiness Report provides rankings of 155 countries based on their happiness index during the period of 2014-2016. 6. The 2018 World Happiness Report provides rankings of 156 countries based on their happiness index during the period of 2015-2017. 7. The 2019 World Happiness Report provides rankings of 156 countries based on their happiness index during the period of 2016-2018. 8. The 2020 World Happiness Report provides rankings of 153 countries based on their happiness index during the period of 2017-2019. 9. The 2021 World Happiness Report provides rankings of 149 countries based on their happiness index during the period of 2018-2020. 10. The 2022 World Happiness Report provides rankings of 146 countries based on their happiness index during the period of 2019-2021. 11. The 2023 World Happiness Report provides rankings of 137 countries based on their happiness index during the period of 2020-2022.

If not stated differently, data collected from: https://worldhappiness.report/

Licence: CDLA-Permissive-1.0

Notes: Please note that some country names have been shortened, for example, “Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China” was shortened to “Hong Kong”.

Additional notes: [name in older Reports, other data sources] = [name used in this file] [data source] • Czech Republic = Czechia [1] • Macedonia = North Macedonia [2] • Turkey = Turkiye [3]

Data sources: 1) https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/country-profiles/czechia_en 2) https://www.strasbourg-europe.eu/macedonia/ 3) https://www.un.org/en/about-us/member-states/turkiye

Update History: 2023-03-14—2023-03-17 – initial data collection for 2013-2022. 2023-03-25 – updated for 2023.

According to the UN's World Happiness Report, China's happiness index ranged at 5.97 points in 2024. China ranked 60th out of 143 countries. Finland, Denmark, and other European countries held the top spots in the ranking, while Afghanistan stayed at the bottom of the list. What is the happiness index? The happiness index is based on a Cantril ladder survey which is carried out annually worldwide by the polling company Gallup. Nationally representative samples of respondents are asked to value the quality of their lives at the survey moment on a 0 to 10 scale, with the worst possible life as zero and the best possible life as ten. The first World Happiness Report was published in 2012, and since then, governments are increasingly using its insights to orient public policies towards happiness. Surge in happiness in China In 2024, the happiness index in China was the highest since the beginning of the survey series. The growth in the sense of happiness has been consistent over the years except for a short period of 2018-2019. As happiness is hard to quantify, the reasons behind the dip in the curve during that time can only be hypothesized. The happiness index of 5.19 points in 2019, which was in the lower 50 percentile, did not seem to correlate with any of the usual suspects: the GDP growth, pollution levels, corruption or the perception of it, or even income inequality. The possible factors that could have affected people’s happiness were unemployment, insufficient social safety net, and several political issues. However, the country saw a surge in the sense of happiness from 2021 onwards. Successful containment of the COVID-19 pandemic that gave a greater feeling of security, fast economic recovery, and increase in the national pride could have been a few of the reasons behind the recent rising optimism in China.

Afghanistan was ranked the least happy country in the world, according to the World Happiness Report from 2025. The country scored only 1.36 on a scale from 0 to 10. Afghanistan has been troubled by low levels of human development, and the situation in the country has worsened for many after the Taliban regained control of the country in 2021. Sierra Leone and Lebanon were ranked as the second and third least happy countries in the world, respectively. The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be.

According to the Happy Planet Index's ranking of the happiest and most environmentally sustainable countries in the world, Costa Rica was ranked as the happiest country in 2021, followed by Vanuatu and Colombia. The Happy Planet Index measures life expectancy, experienced well-being, inequality of outcomes, and ecological footprint in order to determine the countries that are able to deliver the longest and happiest, but also most sustainable lives to their residents. The Index works to measure efficiency by ranking countries relative to how they offer their people long and happy lives, for each unit of environmental output.

Libya was ranked the happiest country in Africa, according to the World Happiness Report for 2024. This nation scored 5.87 points on a scale from 0 to 10 and ranked 66th among 143 countries globally. Worldwide, Finland is considered to be the happiest country. The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be. The measurement of subjective well-being relies on three main indicators: life evaluations, positive emotions, and negative emotions.

In 2024, Switzerland led the ranking of countries with the highest average wealth per adult, with approximately ******* U.S. dollars per person. The United States was ranked second with an average wealth of around ******* U.S. dollars per adult, followed by Hong Kong SAR. However, the figures do not show the actual distribution of wealth. The Gini index shows wealth disparities in countries worldwide. Does wealth guarantee a longer life? As the adage goes, “money can’t buy you happiness,” yet wealth and income are continuously correlated to the quality of life of individuals in different countries around the world. While greater levels of wealth may not guarantee a higher quality of life, it certainly increases an individual’s chances of having a longer one. Although they do not show the whole picture, life expectancy at birth is higher in the wealthier world regions. Does money bring happiness? A number of the world’s happiest nations also feature in the list of those countries for which average income was highest. Finland, however, which was the happiest country worldwide in 2022, is missing from the list of the top twenty countries with the highest wealth per adult. As such, the explanation for this may be the fact that a larger proportion of the population has access to a high-income relative to global levels. Measures of quality of life Criticism of the use of income or wealth as a proxy for quality of life led to the creation of the United Nations’ Human Development Index. Although income is included within the index, it also has other factors taken into account, such as health and education. As such, the countries with the highest human development index can be correlated to those with the highest income levels. That said, none of the above measures seek to assess the physical and mental environmental impact of a high quality of life sourced through high incomes. The happy planet index demonstrates that the inclusion of experienced well-being and ecological footprint in place of income and other proxies for quality of life results in many of the world’s materially poorer nations being included in the happiest.