TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The U.N. World Happiness Report published on Monday (March 20) ranked Taiwan as the happiest country in East Asia, fourth happiest in Asia, and 27th happiest in the world.

The U.N. released the World Happiness Report 2023, which listed 137 countries and regions around the world based on seven factors: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, perceptions of corruption, and dystopia. In this year's report, Finland kept its ranking as the happiest country for the sixth consecutive year.

Worldwide, Taiwan was ranked 27th, but in East Asia, Taiwan came in first place, with Japan (47), South Korea (57), Mongolia (61), China (64), Hong Kong (82), and North Korea not even making the list. Taiwan placed 4th in Asia overall, trailing only Israel (4th), Singapore (25th), and the United Arab Emirates (26).

As can be seen from the report, the top 10 are comprised of Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Israel, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg and New Zealand. In terms of other major countries in the world, Australia is 12th, Canada is 13th, the U.S. is 15th, Germany is 16th, the U.K. is 19th, France is 21st, Spain is 32nd, Italy is 33rd, and Russia 70th.

The bottom 10 least happy countries are Zambia (128), Tanzania (129), Comoros (130), Malawi (131), Bostwana (132), the Democratic Republic of Congo (133), Zimbabwe (134), Sierra Leone (135), Lebanon (136), and Afghanistan (137).

The World Happiness Report was first released in 2012. Taiwan's performance has declined slightly in recent years, having ranked 26th in 2022 and 24th in 2021, but is consistently rated highly in comparison to other Asian countries.