Although Denmark has taken the top spot on many other, different happiness surveys, including a report released at a United Nations meeting two months ago, the latest findings have come to a different conclusion.
USA Today reports that based on the "Happy Planet Index," which rates 151 nations by measuring ecological sustainability against well-being and life expectancy, Costa Rica is the happiest country in the world for the second straight year. The index was created by the New Economics Foundation in the U.K. To find data for well-being, the organization used the Gallup World Poll, and data for life expectancy was taken from the 2011 United Nations Human Development Report. A country's "ecological footprint" is calculated from data provided by the World Wildlife Fund.
Located in Central America, the country is known for the fact that its constitution bans a national military and for ecotourism. It's no surprise, then, that Costa Rica earned praise for "a per capita ecological footprint one third the size of that of the U.S." The nation also has a high average life expectancy and good scores in the well-being category
In fact, many of the countries that had very high rankings on the "Happy Planet Index" are located in Central America. The countries at the top of the list include Vietnam, Colombia, Belize, El Salvador, Jamaica, Panama, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guatemala.
On the other end of the scale is Botswana. The country earned the index's worst marks. It was judged to have "low life expectancy, very low levels of experienced well-being, and a moderately high ecological footprint."
The United States didn't have a good rating, either. It was rated 105 out of 151 countries listed due to the country's "extremely high" ecological footprint. Perhaps the residents of San Luis Obispo would disagree.
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