The United Nations has released its World Happiness Index for 2020. In its eighth annual edition, this year’s report and ranking focused on three main areas of the countries’ environments, including social, urban and natural.
The Nordic countries filled up four of the top five spots. The report credited their impressive social environment to “higher personal and institutional trust,” making it the “key factors in explaining why life evaluations are so high in those countries.”
The urban environment scrutinized the happiness in cities and compared them to that of rural areas across the world, while the natural environment examined “how the local environment affects happiness.”
“A happy social environment, whether urban or rural, is one where people feel a sense of belonging, where they trust and enjoy each other and their shared institutions,” report co-author, John Helliwell, said. “There is also more resilience because shared trust reduces the burden of hardships, and thereby lessens the inequality of well-being.”
Coming up tops on the list for the third year in a row is Finland, with Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway following in that order.
The five happiest countries in Africa, as per their ranking include Mauritius (49th), Libya (80th), Ivory Coast (85th) and Benin (86th).
Even though Afghanistan is the unhappiest country in the world as per the report, six African countries occupy the last but seven spots.
Scroll through to take a look at them and the others that follow:
