Canada ranked 13th happiest country

Canada moves up in its world’s happiest country ranking

According to this year's annual happiness report, Canadians are pretty content in the grand scheme of things, despite not cracking the top ten world's happiest countries.

The UN's World Happiness Report for 2023 was released on Monday, the International Day of Happiness, with Canada ranking 13th out of 137 countries included in the report. We moved up slightly from 15th in 2022, and from 14th in 2021.

Within the report, "happiness" is determined based on a wide variety of factors including social support, income, health, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption.

Scandinavian countries hold the top spots in the rankings, with Finland on top for the sixth year in a row. Denmark took 2nd place, with Iceland in 3rd.

Canada ranks just below Australia in 12th place, with the United States trailing just behind us in 15th.

Sierra Leone (135th), Lebanon (136th), and Afghanistan (137th) are ranked as the unhappiest countries in the survey.

Here are the top 15 world's happiest countries:
  1. Finland
  2. Denmark
  3. Iceland
  4. Israel
  5. Netherlands
  6. Sweden
  7. Norway
  8. Switzerland
  9. Luxembourg
  10. New Zealand
  11. Austria
  12. Australia
  13. Canada
  14. Ireland
  15. United States

The rankings are determined based on a three-year average of survey data from the Gallup World Poll, which collects responses from approximately 1,000 people per country each year. 2023's report includes the average from the pandemic years, between 2020 to 2022.

Poll respondents are asked to rate their life on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being the "worst possible life" and 10 representing the "best possible life."

You can find the full 166-page-long report here, a fascinating read which also evaluates how the world adapted through various crises and its effects on global happiness, including the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine, worldwide inflation, and more.

Lead photo by

Harry Grout


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