Turkish Cypriots much happier than their Greek Cypriot - World report

If you ask me, I wouldn't believe that Turkish Cypriots were much happier than their Greek Cypriot neighbors but according to the World Happiness Report for 2018, released on Tuesday, North Cyprus was ranked as the 58th most happy country in the world ahead of south Cyprus ranked at 61.

The report ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, and 117 countries by the happiness of their immigrants.

The top ten positions this year were held by the same countries as the last two years though some moved up and some down. The first five countries were Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland.

The overall rankings of country happiness are based on the pooled results from Gallup World Poll surveys from 2015-2017, and show both change and stability.

All the top countries tend to have high values for all six of the key variables that have been found to support wellbeing: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity.

Among the top countries, differences are small enough that year-to-year changes in the rankings are to be expected.

North Cyprus is ranked at 58th, Cyprus 61st, Greece 79th, Turkey 74th, Russia 59th, Israel 11th, US 18th and the UK 19th.

The last countries on the list were Syria, Rwanda, Yemen, Tanzania, South Sudan, Central African Republic and at the bottom was Burundi.

Meanwhile, Nigeria was ranked the 91 happiest nation of the world, and fifth in Africa, Mauritius is now the happiest country in Africa, followed by crisis-torn Libya, Algeria and Morocco respectively.

The United Nations celebrates the International Day of Happiness on March 20.