Iceland - The Happy Country

According to conclusions of scientists from Britain research center "New Economic Foundation" who, together with the ecological organization "Friends of the Earth", made "The European Happy Planet Index" rating, Iceland appeared to be the happiest European country.

Analysts estimated every European country according to three factors: satisfaction of citizens with their living standards, life expectancy and "environmental pressure". The last term means the quantity of land necessary for providing the population with food products and neutralization of industrial wastes.

The rating including 30 countries of Europe was made up basing on the results of these estimations. As the survey revealed, Scandinavian countries are at the top of the list of the happiest European countries - Iceland is followed by Sweden, Norway and Denmark, they took the second, third and sixth places, accordingly. Switzerland is at the fourth place in the list, in this country there is the highest duration of life in Europe as well - 80.5 years. Estonia is the last at the tail of the rating of the happiest countries of Europe, where, besides the highest points on "environmental pressure", the level of criminality got the second place among the other countries of the list.

Luxemburg, Bulgaria and Greece appeared to be right ahead of Estonia. According to the rating, Latvia is a country with the lowest duration of life in Europe - 70.7 years. In July of 2006 year NEF published "The Happy Planet Index" rating for all the countries of the globe. The list of the happiest countries in the world was headed by the island state Vanuatu located in the Pacific Ocean. According to the rating the worst situation is in African countries and industrially advanced countries. Russia took the 172nd place from 178 possible in "The Happy Planet Index". From the republics of the former USSR, Estonians and Ukrainians feel unhappier than Russians (173rd and 174th places accordingly).

The experts note that the Europeans should pattern the behavior of the leader. In global sense that means using the renewable sources of energy for not to harm the ecology, in concrete sense - to better take care about the health of citizens.