The world’s happiest countries have a few things in common

Each year the World Happiness Report ranks countries based on the “life evaluations” of more than 100,000 global survey respondents. The report is partnership between the University of Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and independent editorial board members, according to its website. 

On a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 representing the worst possible life for themselves and 10 being the best, respondents are asked to state where they see themselves on issues like freedom, inequality, positive and negative emotions, and healthy life expectancy.

“Many people think of happiness as a positive emotional state, associated with smiling, laughing, and feeling good … However, people often use happiness to describe their assessments and judgements too,” according to the report’s website, which noted the last three years of responses are taken into account for rankings. “We care about both of these aspects.” 

This year, all but one of the six happiest countries are Nordic, and nearly all of the top 10 are in Europe, according to findings published March 19.