The World's Happiest Countries (The List)

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How happy is your country? A new report used interviews with more than 146,000 people around the world to rank 145 countries by the well being of their residents.

Participants answered questions about five aspects of their well-being: their sense of purpose, social relationships, financial situations, community involvement and physical health. Based on their responses, participants were considered "thriving," "struggling" or "suffering" in each of those five aspects.

Here's the full list of rankings, in order of the percentage of people who were thriving in three or more aspects of well-being:

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Rank	Country	2014 Thriving in 3+ Elements
1	Panama	53.0%
2	Costa Rica	47.6%
3	Puerto Rico	45.8%
4	Switzerland	39.4%
5	Belize	38.9%
6	Chile	38.7%
7	Denmark	37.0%
8	Guatemala	36.3%
9	Austria	35.6%
10	Mexico	35.6%
11	Uruguay	35.5%
12	Argentina	33.6%
13	Colombia	33.4%
14	Kyrgyzstan	33.4%
15	Brazil	33.2%
16	Norway	32.0%
17	Netherlands	31.9%
18	El Salvador	31.9%
19	Turkmenistan	31.7%
20	Myanmar	31.7%
21	United Arab Emirates	30.8%
22	Israel	30.7%
23	United States	30.5%
24	Canada	30.2%
25	Luxembourg	30.2%
26	Sweden	29.1%
27	Saudi Arabia	28.5%
28	Germany	28.0%
29	New Zealand	27.9%
30	Venezuela	27.7%
31	Bahrain	27.6%
32	Mauritania	27.3%
33	Nicaragua	27.3%
34	Dominican Republic	26.9%
35	Honduras	26.4%
36	Ireland	26.3%
37	Finland	26.2%
38	Bolivia	25.9%
39	Ecuador	25.9%
40	Australia	25.3%
41	Malaysia	24.6%
42	Malta	24.4%
43	Philippines	24.1%
44	United Kingdom	23.5%
45	Kuwait	23.5%
46	Sierra Leone	23.4%
47	Russia	23.0%
48	France	22.8%
49	Northern Cyprus	22.6%
50	Thailand	22.4%
51	Namibia	21.7%
52	Slovakia	21.4%
53	Romania	20.8%
54	Macedonia	20.6%
55	Spain	20.6%
56	Tanzania	20.2%
57	Poland	20.1%
58	Turkey	19.9%
59	Taiwan	19.8%
60	Sri Lanka	19.5%
61	Kazakhstan	19.1%
62	Sudan	19.0%
63	Mauritius	18.9%
64	Algeria	18.5%
65	Albania	18.5%
66	Portugal	18.3%
67	Belgium	18.2%
68	Mongolia	17.7%
69	Bosnia Herzegovina	17.5%
70	India	17.1%
71	Kenya	16.8%
72	Czech Republic	16.8%
73	Indonesia	16.7%
74	Bulgaria	16.6%
75	Hungary	16.5%
76	Jamaica	16.4%
77	Nepal	16.4%
78	Paraguay	16.3%
79	Estonia	16.2%
80	Pakistan	16.0%
81	Belarus	15.7%
82	Cyprus	15.7%
83	Tajikistan	15.6%
84	Serbia	15.3%
85	Italy	15.3%
86	Slovenia	14.7%
87	Congo Brazzaville	14.6%
88	Latvia	14.3%
89	Lebanon	14.1%
90	Yemen	14.0%
91	Peru	13.8%
92	Japan	13.5%
93	Vietnam	13.2%
94	Montenegro	13.1%
95	Iran	13.0%
96	Kosovo	13.0%
97	Singapore	12.7%
98	Rwanda	12.4%
99	Cambodia	12.4%
100	Bangladesh	12.3%
101	Jordan	12.2%
102	Iraq	12.1%
103	Lithuania	11.7%
104	Croatia	11.5%
105	Moldova	11.4%
106	South Sudan	11.3%
107	Ethiopia	11.2%
108	Liberia	10.4%
109	South Africa	10.4%
110	Mali	10.4%
111	Greece	10.3%
112	Palestine	9.9%
113	Niger	9.8%
114	Botswana	9.8%
115	Morocco	9.5%
116	Guinea	9.4%
117	South Korea	9.4%
118	Burkina Faso	9.0%
119	Azerbaijan	9.0%
120	Hong Kong	8.6%
121	Gabon	8.3%
122	Angola	8.3%
123	Malawi	8.2%
124	Armenia	8.1%
125	Zambia	7.9%
126	Georgia	7.9%
127	China	7.9%
128	Ukraine	7.7%
129	Egypt	7.7%
130	Chad	7.7%
131	Burundi	7.6%
132	Senegal	6.8%
133	Uganda	6.6%
134	Madagascar	6.5%
135	Zimbabwe	6.1%
136	Ghana	5.6%
137	Haiti	5.3%
138	Benin	4.8%
139	Ivory Coast	4.5%
140	Congo Kinshasa	4.1%
141	Tunisia	4.0%
142	Togo	3.9%
143	Cameroon	3.1%
144	Bhutan	3.0%
145	Afghanistan	0.0%

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Rachael is a Live Science contributor, and was a former channel editor and senior writer for Live Science between 2010 and 2022. She has a master's degree in journalism from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program. She also holds a B.S. in molecular biology and an M.S. in biology from the University of California, San Diego. Her work has appeared in Scienceline, The Washington Post and Scientific American.