Christian Wenande
March 20th, 2019

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“Yay! We’re back in second!” (photo: Pixabay)

Over the last few years Denmark has lost its stranglehold on being labelled the happiest country in the world – with first Finland and then also Norway sneaking ahead over the past two years.

But the Danes have stymied the haemorrhaging and are back up to second in UN’s latest 2019 World Happiness report (here in English). The Finns remain just ahead, however.

“The annual data for Finland have continued their modest but steady upward trend since 2014, so that dropping 2015 and adding 2018 boosts the average score, thereby putting Finland significantly ahead of other countries in the top ten,” the report found.

“Denmark and Norway have also increased their average scores, but Denmark by more than Norway, so Denmark is now in second place and Norway third.”

READ MORE: Global Denmark: The happiest country on earth – for all

African woe
In the ‘Happiness League Table’, Denmark ranked third for Corruption, fourth for Social Support and sixth for Freedom, while it was pulled down a bit in categories such as Positive Affect, Negative Effect, Generosity and Healthy Life Expectancy, in which it ranked in the 20s.

It was an all Nordic affair in the top four with Iceland coming fourth, while the top 10 was completed by the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada and Austria.

Other notables included Australia (11), the UK (15), Germany (17), the US (19), Mexico (23), Brazil (32), South Korea (54), Japan (58), Russia (68), Nigeria (85), Indonesia (92), China (93) and India (140).

Languishing at the unhappy end of the spectrum was conflict-ridden South Sudan, preceded by Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Tanzania and Rwanda.