Scandinavians - the world's happiest people

Every year surveys are carried out to produce lists of the happiest nations in the world. What do the countries topping the polls have in common?

Happiness has been described as a "state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy".

Meassuring the degree of happiness is of course challenging. One of the tools developed by researchers is The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire.

The Gallup World Poll recently presented a survey based on thousands of respondents in 155 countries, between 2005 and 2009.

They first asked people questions about their overall satisfaction with their lives. They also asked how they had felt the previous day. Those answers allowed researchers to score their "daily experiences", and found whether they felt rested, respected, free of pain and intellectually engaged.

The Nordic remedy

Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden are the top four countries in Forbes poll -killing the myth that long, dark, and cold winters make us less happy.

Iceland has previously scored very high in similar surveys but the recent recession might explain why they are now only in 23rd place.

Italy and France, countries we often think of as having life indulging and happy people, are found as low down as 40 and 44 on the list.

Modern and developed democracies such as Switzerland (8th), The United states (14th) and The UK (17th) are also surprisingly far down. And thriving economies like Japan and Hong Kong share the 83rd place.

Eastern European nations, with Russia in 73rd and Estonia in 90th place, tend to score low. So do many poor nations in Africa and Asia.

A well developed and free education and health system, pleasant working conditions, equality, generous benefits, and an open political environment that encourages a free debate, appears to be the key ingredients for happiness according to this poll.