UN Report: Czech Republic Among World’s Happiest Countries In 2018

The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness. Released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations, the report ranks countries on six key factors that indicate well-being: income, freedom, trust, healthy life expectancy, social support, and generosity.

According to this year’s report, released today in advance of International Happiness Day later this month, Finland is the happiest country on the planet.

The Czech Republic is on the rise; the country edged out Malta and France to come in at #21 on the index, moving up two places in the rankings from last year. It placed just behind the United Arab Emirates (#20), the UK (#19), and the US (#18).

This year, for the first time, the agency also took into account how immigrants are faring in 117 countries of the 156 countries surveyed.

“The most striking finding of the report is the remarkable consistency between the happiness of immigrants and the locally born,” said report co-editor John Helliwell, an economist at the University of British Columbia.

The 10 happiest countries also occupied 10 of the top 11 spots in the rankings of immigrant happiness; the happiness score of foreign-born people living in the Czech Republic, however, was #41.

Burundi came in at #156 as the least happy country in the world.