How happy are you? Depends heavily on what country you live in. Not too many happy people in Zimbabwe

The First-ever 'World Map Of Happiness'

Adrian White, an analytic social psychologist at the University's School of Psychology, analysed data published by UNESCO, the CIA, the New Economics Foundation, the WHO, the Veenhoven Database, the Latinbarometer, the Afrobarometer, and the UNHDR, to create a global projection of subjective well-being. Since wording like that is almost certainly not going to gain much tractionin the real world, they've come up with a far more catchy title, the first world map of happiness.

"The concept of happiness, or satisfaction with life, is currently a major area of research in economics and psychology, most closely associated with new developments in positive psychology. It has also become a feature in the current political discourse in the UK.

"Further analysis showed that a nation's level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels (correlation of .62), followed by wealth (.52), and then provision of education (.51).

Looking at the numbers, it is clear that health, wealth and education are heavily interdependent on each other, which makes sense without anyone one of them the other two would be expected to drop. If you have a country such as, say, the Congo, which is missing two, it's clear why it's at the bottom. Arguably it's really missing three since it's vast mineral wealth is wholly under-exploited due to near constant wars and incessant corruption.

"There is a belief that capitalism leads to unhappy people. However, when people are asked if they are happy with their lives, people in countries with good health care, a higher GDP per captia, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy.

The 20 happiest nations in the World are:

1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada
11. Ireland
12. Luxembourg
13. Costa Rica
14. Malta
15. The Netherlands
16. Antigua and Barbuda
17. Malaysia
18. New Zealand
19. Norway
20. The Seychelles

Other notable results include:

23. USA
35. Germany
41. UK
62. France
82. China
90. Japan
125. India
167. Russia

The three least happy countries were:

176. Democratic Republic of the Congo
177. Zimbabwe
178. Burundi

Like the title said, a big part of happiness is dependent on what country you live.