The ranking of the happiest countries in the world: Costa Rica and Mexico are the best-placed Latin American countries, and Venezuela and Haiti the worst.

Finland is, for the second year in a row, the happiest country in the world, according to a UN report released Wednesday, while South Sudan, in the middle of the war, is in last place.

In Latin America, Costa Rica is the best placed country (12th position), followed by Mexico (23rd), Chile (26th), Guatemala (27th), Panama (31st), Brazil (32nd), Uruguay (33 °) and El Salvador (35 °). Then Colombia (43 °), Nicaragua (45 °) and Argentina (47th), which lost 18 places over the 2018 report, ranked 29th out of 156 nations.

And, after Haiti – which is ranked 147 -, Venezuela was ranked as the least-favored nation in the Latin America and Caribbean region, ranking 108th in the 2019 ranking of the World Happiness Report.

Finland, a country with 190,000 lakes known for its forests and saunas, leads Denmark (2nd place), followed by Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand and Canada. The nations occupying the first places filled the main indicators and they are characterized by the stability of their society.

The methodology used is to ask a sample of people from 156 different countries to respond to a series of questions about the perception of their quality of life on a scale of 0 to 10.

Despite the Brexit-related political changes, the UK has gained four places in the 2019 rankings and is now in 15th place.

The United States continued to rank 19th. "This year's report provides evidence that leads us to reflect on the fact that addictions cause a lot of suffering and depression in the United States," said Professor Jeffrey Sachs, one of the authors of the 39; study. report.

South Sudan ranks last. The UN recently declared that 60% of the population was threatened by hunger as the country was going through a civil war that killed 400,000 people.

Yemen, Afghanistan and the Central African Republic, also at war, are at the bottom of the rankings.

The document, published seven years ago, coincides with the World Day of Happiness, established by the UN and held on March 20.

The authors of the report indicate that happiness in the world has receded, linked in recent years to negative feelings such as "worry, sadness and anger, particularly prevalent in Asia and Africa, and recently in d & # 39; 39, other places ".

This year, the report has focused on "the evolution of happiness over the last twelve years and the influence of information technology, government and social standards on communities." ". But other tangible variables are also taken into account levels of education, social support, government efficiency, life expectancy or corruption.

The study also refers to the achievements and evolution of countries in the clbadification since 2005.

Half of the 20 largest gains have been made in Central and Eastern Europe, five in sub-Saharan Africa and three in Latin America (Nicaragua, Ecuador and El Salvador). The five major setbacks since 2005 have been recorded in Yemen, India, Syria, Botswana and Venezuela (the country with the largest drop among the 156 investigated) .

Ranking of happiness by country in 2019:

Changes in the happiness of countries between 2005 and 2018:

Then, the full report of 2019:

With information from AFP and EFE