[News] Finland was the world's happiest country again last year despite Covid-19's impact

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In a year when loved ones, jobs and individual freedoms were lost in the pandemic, it wouldn’t be surprising if people around the world felt greater dissatisfaction with their lives.

However, while mental health has declined in many countries, there has been a surprising resilience in how people rate their lives overall, according to this year's World Happiness Report.

The world's happiest country also stayed the same, as Finland came out on top for the fourth straight year. Denmark was second and Switzerland third. Iceland and the Netherlands completed the top five, while the United States ranked 19th on the list.

Finland, a small Scandinavian country with a po[CENSORED]tion of around 5.5 million, has used past wins to tout tourism and promote its natural beauty.

The country has consistently ranked high on the measures of mutual trust that have helped protect lives and livelihoods during the pandemic, the report said.

"For the 4th year in a row, #Finland is the happiest country in the world," tweeted the Finnish Embassy in the United States on Friday. "Our #happiness stems from a balanced everyday life, supported by good governance, trust, wellbeing and equality. The pandemic has not changed this long-lasting foundation."

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The annual happiness rankings are based on citizens' evaluations of their own lives. The study uses data from the Gallup World Poll, which asks respondents to assess their life as a whole by imagining a ladder, with the best possible life for them as 10 and the worst possible as 0.

Image: Helsinki, Finland
Commuters at a tram stop in Helsinki, Finland, on March 8.Roni Rekomaa / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
This year's report looked specifically at the relationship between well-being and Covid-19. It also attempts to assess how governments around the world have dealt with the coronavirus and to explain why some countries may have done better than others.

Reflecting the global nature of the pandemic and the widely shared resilience when faced with it, Covid-19 has led to only modest changes in the overall country happiness rankings, according to the study, which is a publication of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

“Surprisingly there was not, on average, a decline in well-being when measured by people's own evaluation of their lives,” said John Helliwell, an editor of the report and a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Canada.