World Happiness Report says Norway is the happiness country, the U.S. is 14th

Courtesy of Lin Cheong on Flickr.

The World Happiness Report, which is a real thing, released its 2017 report of how happy everyone is. Along with some great analysis, they released a descending list of 155 countries from happiest to unhappiest.

But, how do you accurately measure the overall happiness of an entire nation? The World Happiness Report takes into account a plethora of factors: GPD per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make choices, generosity and perception of corruption.

The top 10 happiest nations are Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden. The country with the biggest rise in happiness is Nicaragua.

The U.S. comes in at 14. The United States saw a pronounced drop in their happiness, having the 24th most negative change. Most unhappy countries got that way due to a poor economy, but the United States, as explained in the last chapter of the report, is going through a social problem.

The 10 least-happy countries are the Central Africa Republic, Burundi, Tanzania, Syria, Rwanda, Togo, Guinea, Liberia, South Sudan and Yemen. The country with the largest drop in happiness is Venezuela.

The full methodology and analysis can be found in the 188-page report.