Here's the map - requires Adobe Acrobat
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/p ... ss_map.pdf

Denmark 'happiest place on earth'
Image of a mouth smiling
Must be a Dane.....
If it is happiness you are seeking a move to Denmark could be in order, according to the first scientist to make a world map of happiness.

Adrian White, from the UK's University of Leicester, used the responses of 80,000 people worldwide to map out subjective wellbeing.

Denmark came top, followed closely by Switzerland and Austria. The UK ranked 41st. Zimbabwe and Burundi came bottom.

A nation's level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels.

Prosperity and education were the next strongest determinants of national happiness.

Mr White, who is an analytic social psychologist at the university, said: "When people are asked if they are happy with their lives, people in countries with good healthcare, a higher GDP [gross domestic product] per capita, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy."

He acknowledged that these measures of happiness are not perfect, but said they were the best available and were the measures that politicians were talking of using to measure the relative performance of each country.

He said it would be possible to use these parameters to track changes in happiness, and what events may cause that, such as the effects a war, famine or national success might have on the happiness of people in a particular country.

Measuring happiness

He said: "There is increasing political interest in using measures of happiness as a national indicator in conjunction with measures of wealth.

"A recent BBC survey found that 81% of the population think the government should focus on making us happier rather than wealthier.

"It is worth remembering that the UK is doing relatively well in this area, coming 41st out of 178 nations."

HOW THE NATIONS RANKED ON HAPPINESS
1st - Denmark
2nd - Switzerland
3rd - Austria
4th - Iceland
5th - The Bahamas
23rd - USA
41st - UK
90th - Japan
178th - Burundi

He said he was surprised to see countries in Asia scoring so low, with China 82nd, Japan 90th and India 125th, because these are countries that are thought as having a strong sense of collective identity which other researchers have associated with well-being.

"It is also notable that many of the largest countries in terms of population do quite badly," he said.

He said: "The frustrations of modern life, and the anxieties of the age, seem to be much less significant compared to the health, financial and educational needs in other parts of the world."

Crybaby Russians.

Russia is fucking miserable. I know this is incredibly generalized for me to say, but they've always struck me as a depressing, miserable people. Maybe it's the weather. Moscow is never sunny when I see pictures of it.

Oh, come on! What do the Sudanese have to complain about! Could they possibly ask for any more?

I see that North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Western Sahara, Somalia and Liberia are off the scale.

Well the US and Finland are pretty happy... and for that I'm HAPPY!

Denmark should invade the rest of the world with happiness

Well, they gave us Lego, so there's something for the kids to be happy about.

And Greenland.

People in those places are so miserable, when you ask them if they're happy, they don't understand the question.

That was funny.

Ya know, I'm gonna have to throw the bullshit flag on this one. This goes against just about every happiness study that I've ever seen, which almost always puts Nigerians as the happiest people on earth followed by the Irish.

It's almost offensive to see the Emirate states as ranked as happier societies than those of Djibouti and Ethiopia.

Bullshit.

Money has absolutely nothing to do with happiness. Neither does education. Now, I can understand where health would come into the equation, but even then, I think westerners fret about health a hell of a lot more than people in the Horn of Africa.

I'd really like to know how the questions were asked and who they were asked to. I'd like to know what the content of those questions were. One thing is for sure, this study is not from evidence on the ground. The stark difference between societies is astounding and I just don't understand how this can possibly be.

How does a xenophobic, isolated society such as Denmark come out on top? How does America, one of the most self centered, labored, isolated societies come ahead of Djibouti? A place where there is no crime, no war, and nothing but smiles and extremely close knit communities? How does a place like the Kuwait, a place where smiling is essentially prohibited, come out on top of a place like Ethiopia, where everywhere you go EVERYONE is holding hands with one another, walking around with their arms wrapped around each other, where everyone smiles, is extremely outgoing, helpful, and downright happy.

I wonder if I went to Denmark, how many people would ask me to sit down and have lunch with me in the afternoon if they saw I had no food in my hand? I doubt any.

If there is one cliche that I know is true, it is that money does not buy happiness, education does not produce happiness. Neither does a tip top healthcare system.

I reckon that this study of happiness was done on hopes and dreams. How people percieved their society to be versus other societies. And I also reckon that it was a study of upper classes as well, and how those people view their nations.

It's utter bullshit.

I thought the same thing. It goes against other happiness studies i have seen also.

Scariest thing I have read all week. Please pass the soma.

I think it is fantastic actually.

I can't believe anyone has ever seen a happiness study before.

You feel a function of government should be to control the emotional state of it's subjects?

I think we both misinterpreted it...governments shouldn't make people "wealthy" rather well off or enabling them to prosper. But I'm assuming that is what you originally meant.

And making people happy means many different things, every nation's people have different ways of being happy. I think universally it means less susceptibility to violence and openess to different ideas. When you throw the word "control" around you are putting the entire thing into a different context, because I never said that at all.

I don't think I misinterpreted it. The government should not be involved in either making us weathlier or happier. That's the essence of personal responsibility and that's why the statement is scary. That people are willing to believe the government should have that level of control in their lives. And I don't throw the word control around. If an authority is placed above mine, it has by definition control over me. And what is government if not the generally agreed on level of oppression?

You agree that being happy means many different things. This level of subjectivity is the reason the government should stay as far away as possible. When your happiness is derived from functions of government, they can take it away from you.