TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The U.N. World Happiness Report published on Wednesday (March 20) ranked Taiwan as the happiest country in East Asia, sixth happiest in Asia, and 31st happiest in the world.
The U.N. released the World Happiness Report 2023, which listed 143 countries and regions around the world based on six factors:
- GDP per capita
- Social support
- Healthy life expectancy
- Freedom
- Generosity
- Corruption
In this year's report, Finland kept its ranking as the happiest country for the seventh consecutive year, while Taiwan dropped four spots from last year.
Worldwide, Taiwan was ranked 31st, but in East Asia, Taiwan came in first place, followed by Japan (51), South Korea (52), Mongolia (77), China (60), Hong Kong (86), and North Korea not even making the list. Taiwan placed sixth in Asia overall, trailing only Israel (5th), Kuwait (13), United Arab Emirates (22), Saudi Arabia (28), and Singapore (30th).
The top 10 comprise Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Australia. In terms of other major countries, Canada is 15th, the U.K. 20th, the U.S. 23rd, Germany 24th, France 27th, Spain 36th, Italy 41st, Russia 72nd, Indonesia 80th, Nigeria 102nd, and India 126th
The bottom 10 and least happy countries are Zambia (134), Eswatini (135), Malawi (136), Botswana (137), Zimbabwe (138), Congo (139), Sierra Leone (140), Lesotho (141), Lebanon (142), and Afghanistan (143).
The World Happiness Report was first released in 2012. Taiwan's performance has declined slightly in recent years, having ranked 27th in 2023, 26th in 2022, and 24th in 2021, but is consistently rated highly in comparison to other Asian countries.