The world ranking of the happiest cities, recently published by the Institute of Quality of Live, lists the city of Aarhus in Denmark as the happiest , with a total score of 1,749.2 points, divided into five areas: citizens, government, economy, environment and mobility.
The ranking, which analyzes 250 cities, once again highlights some of the coldest countries, with Zurich in Switzerland and Berlin in Germany coming in second and third, respectively.
So let’s find out where Lisbon, and, for that matter, Porto and other Portuguese towns rank in this top list of the happiest cities in the world.
What is the annual Happy City Index?
This study also serves to understand how different factors, such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity and the perception of corruption, influence overall happiness.
According to this analysis, for a city to be happy it’s not enough to be the biggest. The happiness of its inhabitants is due to numerous factors, such as the availability of resources, social and natural conditions and, of course, their own cultural and economic characteristics.
It is therefore believed that a city will be much happier the higher the level of well-being of those who live in it and, in this sense, every possible effort is being asked of political decision-makers, be they local, regional or, undoubtedly, national, now more than ever.
What is Lisbon’s position? What about other Portuguese cities?
While Nordic countries and cities continue to take all the “prizes” when it comes to the best living conditions, Portugal is still a long way from at least making the top 50.
Even so, given that this list features the 250 happiest cities on the planet, 96th place isn’t bad at all (you have to look at the glass half full, don’t you?). We received a total of 1483.6 points.
Porto, on the other hand, made it past the 100 happiest countries in the world, coming in 119th place with 1441.6 points; Faro in 146th place; Aveiro in 175; and Funchal in 199.
Among the 250 cities, we can’t say that we are in a bad position, but the truth is that the country still faces some challenges when it comes to the satisfaction of its citizens, and the adoption of new public policies could make happiness levels more effective and thus make society even more satisfied.
You can consult the Happy City Index #2024 report on the website from the Quality of Life Institute, to find out about the other cities in this ranking.