Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

SDSN is out with its World Happiness Report for 2015, ranking the top happiest (and saddest) countries based on a distinct set of criteria. Feel grateful if you live in northern Europe, or anywhere above the Ecuator for that matter.

The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) produced the report with the help of leading experts in economics, neuroscience, and national statistics. The PDF describes how measurements of subjective well-being can be used to assess national progress.

Authors include Professor John F. Helliwell, of the University of British Columbia and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research; Professor Richard Layard, Director of the Well-Being Programme at LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance; and Professor Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute and SDSN.

The graphic below is just a small chunk of the 170-page report [gasp], but it does show a list of top happiest 53 countries and the levels therein. The colors are the six key factors used to measure the happiness level of each country’s residents.

Things like GDP per capita, generosity, healthy life expectancy and freedom to make life choices play a key role in a nation’s overall happiness levels. Over to the right, you’ll find a partial screen grab of the least happy territories on the globe (as well as the legend for the indicators). Enjoy!