World Happiness Report: Hungary moderately happy

According to the annual ranking of the happiest countries in the world, based on a global survey by the Gallup Institute, Hungary ranks 51st, while Finland is ranked first in the Word Happiness Report.

This year the institute examined the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on people's well-being in 109 countries around the world, MTI reports. The US researchers found that people's sense of happiness has remained "remarkably resilient" despite the pandemic, with global averages between 2020 and 2022 as high as in the years preceding the pandemic, 2017-2019.

Countries from northern and western Europe usually top the list which was published for the 11th time this year.

Finland has finished first for the sixth year in a row, with Denmark and Iceland also close behind. They are followed by Israel, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg and New Zealand. Austria and Australia are 11th and 12th, while Germany is 16th, down two places from last year.

At 51st, Hungary is in the middle of the ranking. Our neighbours are Salvador in 50th place and Argentina in 52nd.

Hungary isn't doing too well in terms of happiness when compared to other countries in the Central European region either: the Czech Republic is the 18th happiest country in the world, Slovenia the 22nd, Romania is 24th on the list, Slovakia the 29th and Poland the 39th.

Russia ranks 70th on the happiness scale, while Ukraine is 92nd.

The two unhappiest countries in the world, according to both last year's and this year's reports, are Pakistan and Nigeria.