Politics
Visualizing the Happiest Country on Every Continent
Visualizing the Happiest Country on Every Continent
The state of our world is shifting beneath our feet โ economics alone no longer equate to satisfaction, let alone happiness.
Todayโs visualization pulls data from the seventh World Happiness Report 2019, which ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels. We’ve previously shown the variables used to measure happiness in this report, but here, we break down rankings by continent and region for a clearer picture of where each country lies.
North America
Unhappy Americans have caused the country to tumble in rankings for a third straight year, despite evidence that things are generally looking up. The report attributes much of this erosion to a variety of addictions: opioids, workaholism, gambling, internet, exercise, and even shopping are among them.
Haiti is the least happy country in this region. The country is still struggling to rebuild sanitation infrastructure and other educational and healthcare programs, despite foreign aid.
In brighter news, Nicaragua is seeing great gains in happiness levels, as the country makes a concentrated effort to reduce poverty.
South America
In South America, the majority of countries cluster around a score of six on the happiness scale.
The one notable exception to this is Venezuela, which is faltering in both happiness rank and regional improvement. The nationโs hyperinflation and humanitarian crisis both show no signs of slowing down.
Europe
Finland comes out on top of the world for a second consecutive year, and itโs not difficult to see why. The country boasts a stable work-life balance, bolstered by a comprehensive welfare state.
Scandinavian countries appear among the happiest nations for similar very reasons โ elevating the regionโs score to 16% above the global average.
On the flip side, Ukraine is the unhappiest, likely intensified by the ongoing war in southeastern Donbass. Greece is the least improved, as it continues to heal from the sovereign debt crisis.
Middle East and Central Asia
Uzbekistan shows the swiftest regional improvement, as the country has launched an ambitious reform agenda for greater economic, social, and political development and openness.
Unfortunately, Syriaโs continued civil war comes with a heavy price for its people and economy, as does the Palestinian-Israeli conflict โ although the latter doesnโt seem to impact Israel’s happiness ranking. In fact, Israel finished with the 13th best score, globally.
Rest of Asia and Oceania
In East Asia, the average happiness score is quite close to the global average, with Taiwan standing out as the happiest country.
Singapore out-competes other countries within Southeast Asia, despite only being home to a population of 5.6 million. Its neighbor Malaysia, however, plunged from 35th to 80th place.
Oceania stands alone – Australia and New Zealand are closely matched in their individual happiness scores.
Africa
The African continent as a whole fares 19.2% below the global average. But there are silver linings, with strong strides towards improvement being made.
Mauritius benefits from good governance and a buoyant tourism sector โ with visitor arrivals equal to the islandโs 1.3 million population. Meanwhile, Benin has soared in the rankings, and is supported by the World Bank in key structural reforms such as poverty reduction and access to basic services.
What could these rankings look like in another ten years?
Notes: The Africa map was updated to show more country scores. The report only covers 156 countries, so “Oceania” only refers to Australia and New Zealand in this instance.
Countries
Charted: The Number of Democracies Globally
How many democracies does the world have? This visual shows the change since 1945 and the top nations becoming more (and less) democratic.

Charted: The Number of Democracies Globally
The end of World War II in 1945 was a turning point for democracies around the world.
Before this critical turning point in geopolitics, democracies made up only a small number of the world’s countries, both legally and in practice. However, over the course of the next six decades, the number of democratic nations would more than quadruple.
Interestingly, studies have found that this trend has recently reversed as of the 2010s, with democracies and non-democracies now in a deadlock.
In this visualization, Staffan Landin uses data from V-DEMโs Electoral Democratic Index (EDI) to highlight the changing face of global politics over the past two decades and the nations that contributed the most to this change.
The Methodology
V-DEM’s EDI attempts to measure democratic development in a comprehensive way, through the contributions of 3,700 experts from countries around the world.
Instead of relying on each nation’s legally recognized system of government, the EDI analyzes the level of electoral democracy in countries on a range of indicators, including:
- Free and fair elections
- Rule of law
- Alternative sources of information and association
- Freedom of expression
Countries are assigned a score on a scale from 0 to 1, with higher scores indicating a higher level of democracy. Each is also categorized into four types of functional government, from liberal and electoral democracies to electoral and closed autocracies.
Which Countries Have Declined the Most?
The EDI found that numerous countries around the world saw declines in democracy over the past two decades. Here are the 10 countries that saw the steepest decline in EDI score since 2010:
Country | Democracy Index (2010) | Democracy Index (2022) | Points Lost |
---|---|---|---|
๐ญ๐บ Hungary | 0.80 | 0.46 | -34 |
๐ต๐ฑ Poland | 0.89 | 0.59 | -30 |
๐ท๐ธ Serbia | 0.61 | 0.34 | -27 |
๐น๐ท Tรผrkiye | 0.55 | 0.28 | -27 |
๐ฎ๐ณ India | 0.71 | 0.44 | -27 |
๐ฒ๐ฑ Mali | 0.51 | 0.25 | -26 |
๐น๐ญ Thailand | 0.44 | 0.20 | -24 |
๐ฆ๐ซ Afghanistan | 0.38 | 0.16 | -22 |
๐ง๐ท Brazil | 0.88 | 0.66 | -22 |
๐ง๐ฏ Benin | 0.64 | 0.42 | -22 |
Central and Eastern Europe was home to three of the countries seeing the largest declines in democracy. Hungary, Poland, and Serbia lead the table, with Hungary and Serbia in particular dropping below scores of 0.5.
Some of the world’s largest countries by population also decreased significantly, including India and Brazil. Across most of the top 10, the “freedom of expression” indicator was hit particularly hard, with notable increases in media censorship to be found in Afghanistan and Brazil.
Countries Becoming More Democratic
Here are the 10 countries that saw the largest increase in EDI score since 2010:
Country | Democracy Index (2010) | Democracy Index (2022) | Points Gained |
---|---|---|---|
๐ฆ๐ฒ Armenia | 0.34 | 0.74 | +40 |
๐ซ๐ฏ Fiji | 0.14 | 0.40 | +26 |
๐ฌ๐ฒ The Gambia | 0.25 | 0.50 | +25 |
๐ธ๐จ Seychelles | 0.45 | 0.67 | +22 |
๐ฒ๐ฌ Madagascar | 0.28 | 0.48 | +20 |
๐น๐ณ Tunisia | 0.40 | 0.56 | +16 |
๐ฑ๐ฐ Sri Lanka | 0.42 | 0.57 | +15 |
๐ฌ๐ผ Guinea-Bissau | 0.41 | 0.56 | +15 |
๐ฒ๐ฉ Moldova | 0.59 | 0.74 | +15 |
๐ณ๐ต Nepal | 0.46 | 0.59 | +13 |
Armenia, Fiji, and Seychelles saw significant improvement in the autonomy of their electoral management bodies in the last 10 years. Partially as a result, both Armenia and Seychelles have seen their scores rise above 0.5.
The Gambia also saw great improvement across many election indicators, including the quality of voter registries, vote buying, and election violence. It was one of five African countries to make the top 10 most improved democracies.
With the total number of democracies and non-democracies almost tied over the past four years, it is hard to predict the political atmosphere in the future.
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