Denmark Is The Happiest Nation In The World

New York: Denmark has been ranked as the happiest country in the world among the 157-nations in the UN-sanctioned World Happiness Report 2016.

This is the second time that the Scandinavian nation, with a population of 5.6 million, has topped the list since the world body started measuring happiness around the world in 2012. The report, released on Wednesday, ranked the countries on a variety of factors — people's health and access to medical care, family relations, job security and social factors, including political freedom and degree of government corruption.

Denmark was followed by Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Finland, who finished in second, third, fourth and fifth positions respectively. The top ten also included Canada, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden in chronological order from sixth to tenth. The USA ranked 13 in the list.

India ranked 118th, down from 117th in 2015. The report said that India was among the group of ten countries witnessing the largest happiness declines along with Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen and Botswana. India comes below nations like China (83), Pakistan (92), Iran (105), Palestinian Territories (108) and Bangladesh (110). 

The report also highlighted the efforts made by some countries to make sure their citizens remained “happy”. The report said: "Four national governments — Bhutan, Ecuador, the UAE and Venezuela — have appointed ministers of happiness responsible for coordinating their national efforts."

While Scandinavian countries dominate the top ten list the bottom is populated by countries de-stabilized by war, conflict or disease in some cases.

Burundi came at the bottom of the list, while Syria ranked at 156. Syria was preceded by Togo, Afghanistan, Benin, Rwanda and Guinea.