If you want to be happy, you need to live in this country

It’s understandable if you’re trying to shake things up after a different past year. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted every part of our lives, leading to millions of deaths worldwide and a battered jobs market. Workers fled cities to the suburbs in an effort to find more space. Offices remain closed in parts of the US despite vaccination rollout starting to pick up this month.

With all that said, life is starting to get better. There’s a clear light at the end of the tunnel and normalcy is on the horizon. However, picking up where our lives were before the pandemic is going to take time, which means maybe your life after the pandemic will take someplace else.

For those searching for happiness after a mentally tolling year, there’s one place that’s remained consistently true in pursuit of pure bliss: Finland.

The Scandinavian country was named the world’s happiest country for the fourth-straight year in an annual study conducted by the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

The World Happiness Report 2021 named Finland the happiest country out of 149, just in front of Denmark and Switzerland.

Two other European countries — Iceland and the Netherlands — placed behind Denmark and Switzerland to round out the top five. The United States placed 19th, down from 18th just a year ago.

“Our aim was two-fold, first to focus on the effects of COVID-19 on the structure and quality of people’s lives, and second to describe and evaluate how governments all over the world have dealt with the pandemic. In particular, we try to explain why some countries have done so much better than others,” researcher said in the study.

The report honed in on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in more than two million deaths worldwide. They said the rise of nearly 4% in the annual number of deaths worldwide played a role on social welfare loss, while the pandemic has created greater economic insecurity, anxiety, disruption of daily life, and created stress and mental and physical health challenges for people.

Researchers said that the rankings remained pretty similar to what they were a year ago.

“Surprisingly there was not, on average, a decline in well-being when measured by people’s own evaluation of their lives,” John Helliwell, professor at the University of British Columbia, said in a statement.

“One possible explanation is that people see COVID-19 as a common, outside threat affecting everybody and that this has generated a greater sense of solidarity and fellow-feeling.”

Other notable countries that placed were the United Kingdom, which moved up one spot to No. 17 on the list. Afghanistan ranked last on the list.

The Happiest Countries in the World

1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Switzerland
4. Iceland
5. Netherlands
6. Norway
7. Sweden
8. Luxemborg
9. New Zealand
10. Austria
11. Australia
12. Isreal
13. Germany
14. Canada
15. Ireland
16. Costa Rica
17. United Kingdom
18. Czech Republic
19. United States
20. Belgium