Bulgaria is 8 positions higher in the UN ranking for the level of happiness of nations, according to The World Happiness Report. The report, which is a publication of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network measures citizens' satisfaction with life. It is published for the tenth time, with its  indicators linked not only to gross domestic product and life expectancy, but also to levels of corruption in the country, social support for the population, education, citizens' ability to make important decisions that affect government and public policies, and more. The report draws on global survey data from people in more than 150 countries. Countries are ranked on happiness based on their average life evaluations over the three preceding years, in this case 2020 to 2022.

Finland tops the ranking as the country with the happiest population for the sixth time in a row, followed by Denmark and Iceland. Bulgaria is 77th out of the 137 countries ranked this year, after the Philippines, Peru, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, compared to the previous rating covering 2019-2021, it had moved up 8 places. Russia ranks 70th and Ukraine 92nd.

There’s cause for optimism in the latest report on world happiness for benevolence is about 25% higher than it was pre-pandemic. “Benevolence to others, especially the helping of strangers, which went up dramatically in 2021, stayed high in 2022,” John Helliwell, one of the authors of the World Happiness Report, said in an interview with CNN.