Israel Eleventh Happiest Country Worldwide

Sanguine

Fri, Apr 24 2015, 8:06 am

Israel Eleventh Happiest Country Worldwide

Israel outranks the US, UK in happiness index, and has jumped three spots since 2011.

Israel was the eleventh happiest country in the world in 2014, according to the World Happiness Report released Friday - outranking the US, UK, and numerous European countries.

Just outranking the Jewish state, the world's top 10 happiest last year were Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia.

The US ranked at #15 - behind Israel, Costa Rica, Australia, and Mexico - and the UK ranked at #21.

The "Palestinian territories" were also included for the list and ranked far down the list at #108 - two spots above Iran, at #110. The United Arab Emirates is the happiest of Arab countries, at #20.

Bottoming out the list are Chad, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Benin, Syria, Burundi, and Togo.

Israel has jumped three spots since 2012, when it first ranked at #14.

The report is released annually by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), and is a United Nations initiative. The report studies statistics from Gallup global polls and factors in information on life expectancy, corruption, GDP, and social rights and freedoms.

Israel was also recently ranked as one of two "free" countries throughout the entire Middle East; the second is Tunisia.

Closer to home, an Independence Day poll published Thursday conducted by TNS for Walla! revealed that 57% of Israeli Jews are satisfied with life in Israel.