The Happiest Countries in The World

News
By published
a woman smiling outdoors.
(Image credit: Warren Goldswain, Shutterstock.com)

Paraguay is the happiest country in the world, according to a new Gallup poll of people in 143 countries.

The newly released 2014 Gallup Positive Experience Index surveyed about 1,000 people in each country and asked them five questions about how they felt the day before, including whether they laughed or smiled, felt well rested and felt as if they were treated with respect. Participants also answered whether they had learned something interesting yesterday, and whether they felt enjoyment. Gallup officials then used the answers to calculate each country's "positive experience index score." [Read the full story on the 2014 happiest country ratings]

Below is a graph showing how the countries ranked.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+.

TOPICS
Laura Geggel
Laura Geggel
Editor

Laura is the archaeology and Life's Little Mysteries editor at Live Science. She also reports on general science, including paleontology. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Scholastic, Popular Science and Spectrum, a site on autism research. She has won multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association for her reporting at a weekly newspaper near Seattle. Laura holds a bachelor's degree in English literature and psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in science writing from NYU.

More about human behavior

Why is yawning contagious?

Scientific consensus shows race is a human invention, not biological reality

Scientists discover 2 new species of crocodile hiding in plain sight
See more latest
Most Popular
A photograph of a researcher holding a crocodile in the Caribbean.
Scientists discover 2 new species of crocodile hiding in plain sight
A close-up view of a barred spiral galaxy. Two spiral arms reach horizontally away from the core in the centre, merging into a broad network of gas and dust which fills the image. This material glows brightest orange along the path of the arms, and is darker red across the rest of the galaxy. Through many gaps in the dust, countless tiny stars can be seen, most densely around the core.
Has the James Webb Space Telescope discovered a 'missing' supermassive black hole? (video)
Illustration of the earth and its oceans with different deep sea species that surround it,
The Mariana Trench is home to some weird deep sea fish, and they all have the same, unique mutations
an illustration of a line of robots working on computers
AI can handle tasks twice as complex every few months. What does this exponential growth mean for how we use it?
an infrared view of a moon showing surface details through the haze of its atmosphere
There's liquid on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. But something's missing and scientists are confused
An Indian woman carries her belongings through the street in chest-high floodwater
Climate change is spoiling food faster, making hundreds of millions of people sick around the world
a picture of a woman's preserved body in a grave
5,000-year-old burial of elite woman with inlaid toucan's beak found in Peru
a woman clutches her belly in pain
What are ovarian cysts? All about cyst formation, symptoms and treatments
a small orb circles a large burning orb while leaving a trail of fire in its wake
Astronomers discover doomed planet shedding a Mount Everest's worth of material every orbit, leaving behind a comet-like tail
a researcher bends over and points to the boundary between a body of water and ice
New technologies are helping to regrow Arctic sea ice