Website ranks the 10 ‘happiest’ places in Maine

What makes a person truly happy?

Researchers have spent a fair amount of time trying to figure that out, with at least one theory being that a person is happiest when they’re given the opportunity to care about other people.

That’s one of the criteria — sort of — used by career advice blog Zippia in its new post determining what it considers the 10 happiest places in Maine.

Zippia’s Chris Kolmar looked at the 28 cities and towns in Maine with at least 5,000 residents, then applied a “happiness” formula which considered things like home ownership, employment rates and percentage of married adults (having someone to care about).

The happiest place in Maine, according to Zippia? That would be Kennebunk, which has the highest percentage of married adults — 55.5 percent — of all the places reviewed.

Here’s Zippia’s top 10 in terms of happy places in Maine:

happiest places

Other criteria that factored into Zippia’s rankings included education rates, short commute times, low costs of living and poverty rates (the lower the happier, of course).

If you’re curious, Maine’s three largest cities — Portland, Lewiston and Bangor — were ranked Nos. 26, 25 and 28, respectively, plagued by the high percentages of single people you might expect to find in more urban environments.

To see the entire list of 28 cities and towns, visit the Zippia post here.

The video below shows Down East magazine’s take on the best places to live in the state: