Dutch people are the 5th happiest in the world

The Netherlands has climbed one place in the United Nations World Happiness Report to overtake Switzerland. Our lovely land of windmills and tulips now ranks 5th in the world for happiness.

United Nations World Happiness Report

Every year, the United Nations conducts a survey of the state of world happiness, in which 156 countries are ranked according to how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be.

While the report considers six factors (GDP, social support, life expectancy, freedom, generosity & corruption) to explain variations, each country’s score is based solely on individuals’ own assessments of their lives - and the Dutch seem to be pretty satisfied with their lot. In fact, this is the happiest we’ve ever been! (Probably because they don't include weather in the rankings...)

The top 10 happiest countries in 2019

The top spots on the ranking are largely taken by Scandinavian countries: for the second year in a row, Finland ranked as the happiest country in the world. While both Norway and Denmark increased their scores from previous years, Denmark showed a more marked improvement and therefore took second place, with Norway sliding into third.  

European nations featured prominently, with only two non-European countries - New Zealand and Canada - making it to the top 10. They took eighth and ninth place, respectively. The bottom-ranked countries were South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Afghanistan.  

The top placed countries were as follows:

1. Finland
2.  Denmark
3. Norway
4. Iceland
5. Netherlands
6. Switzerland
7. Sweden
8. New Zealand
9. Canada
10. Austria

How is the World Happiness Ranking decided?

The video below provides an overview of how the happiness ranking is calculated. You can also read a detailed description, along with the full report, on the World Happiness Report website.