The report, prepared by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Earth Institute at Columbia University, showed Syria, Afghanistan and eight sub-Saharan countries as the 10 least happy places on earth to live. The top 10 this year were Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden. Denmark was in third place last year, behind Switzerland and Iceland. The bottom 10 were Madagascar, Tanzania, Liberia, Guinea, Rwanda, Benin, Afghanistan, Togo, Syria and Burundi. The United States came in at 13, the United Kingdom at 23, France at 32, and Italy at 50. Here: #8. NEW ZEALAND: A woman dives from a platform into a giant air bed at a park in Palmerston North September 29, 2011. (Photo by Marcos Brindicci/Reuters)

A fish jumps over a net as a boy works in a fish farm at Htantapin township, outside Yangon, Myanmar February 18, 2016. One in five children in Myanmar aged 10-17 go to work instead of school, according to figures from a census report on employment published last month, and the opening up of the economy since 2011 has triggered a spike in demand for labour. Many children work in fish farming and processing. At Yangon's San Pya fish market, the country's largest, girls and boys as young as nine clean and process fish and unload boats and trucks during 12-hour overnight shifts. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

An African migrant stranded in Costa Rica bathes at a makeshift camp at the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, in Penas Blancas, Costa Rica, July 14, 2016. Thousands of African migrants are currently stranded in Costa Rica after they were denied entry into neighbouring Nicaragua, which they have been using as a crossing point in order to reach the United States. According to the Costa Rican Red Cross, most of these people from Africa, Asia and Haiti. It has been reported that many of them paid smugglers to reach Central America. However, when they arrived at the border gates, they were denied entry and were left with nowhere to go. (Photo by Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters)

A pregnant woman poses on June 19, 2018 in Vertou, western France. France had an estimated population of 68.4 million by January 1, 2024, representing a further year-on-year increase of 0.3 percent, limited by a marked drop in the birth rate, the INSEE national statistics bureau of France reported on January 16, 2024. In 2023, 678,000 babies were born in France, 6.6 percent fewer than the previous year, the lowest number of births in any year since 1946. Over the same period, there were 631,000 deaths, down 6.5 percent on 2022, a year marked by the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and episodes of extreme heat. (Photo by Loic Venance/AFP Photo)

Nyibol Lual, 13 years old, helps her family to prepare the land for cultivation on May 31, 2017, in Panthau, Northern Bahr al Ghazal, South Sudan. The family has a small land where they cultivate sorghum. An estimated 63 per cent of the population in Northern Bahr al Ghazal is experiencing severe food insecurity, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report. The situation is particularly bad in Aweil West and Aweil South counties, where the exhaustion of household food stocks and growing dependence on financially inaccessible markets have left the population facing Emergency levels of food insecurity. (Photo by Albert Gonzalez Farran/AFP Photo)

A picture made available on 14 July 2016 shows Greyhound dogs racing at the Wentworth Park Stadium in Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia, 13 July 2016. Greyhound racing has returned to Sydney's Wentworth Park and other NSW tracks for the first time since the state government announced plans to ban it. NSW Premier Mike Baird announced last week plans to shut down the sport in NSW following a Special Commission of Inquiry report that found “chilling” evidence of systemic animal cruelty within the industry. (Photo by David Moir/EPA)

Behaviour: Mammals category. Giant Gathering by Tony Wu, USA. Dozens of sperm whales mingled noisily off Sri Lanka’s northeast coast, stacked as far down as Tony could see. This was a congregation of dozens of social units, like a gathering of the clans. Aggregations like this could be a critical part of the whales’ rich social lives but are rarely reported. Some two thirds of the population was wiped out before commercial whaling was banned in 1986. This kind of major gathering could be “a sign that populations are recovering”, says Tony. (Photo by Tony Wu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017)

A handout photo provided by the Police department in Lippe on 01 June 2015 of a British “Challenger 2” tank after it rolled over a car's front in Lippe, Germany, 01 June 2015. Police reported that a 18-year old female driving beginner from Detmold apparently overlooked a convoy of tanks when she turned left onto the Panzeringstrasse (lit. Tank Ring Road). (Photo by EPA/Polizei Lippe)