We spoke to an economist, John Helliwell, who has edited the reports since the beginning. He said the data were compiled from the World Gallup poll, wherein people were asked to value their lives as a whole, with the best possible life being a 10 and the worst possible being a 0.
Of course, a countries happiness is subjective and hard to quantify.
And just because a country makes it onto the ""Happiest countries"" list, doesn't mean they're free of problems or criticism. For example, the Nordic countries have been among those witnessing a rise of far-right political parties and nationalist anti-immigrant sentiment after the European migrant crisis began in 2015.
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