Finland once again tops the World Happiness Report which was released on Wednesday and measures social support, income, health, freedom, generosity and the absence of corruption to determine a country's national happiness.

Finland is topping the list for a seventh year in a row, closely followed by Denmark and Iceland.

Director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford and an Editor of the World Happiness Report, Professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, said that among the factors that contributed to people's wellbeing was GDP per capita, wealth distribution, a welfare state that provides psychological stability and a healthy life expectancy.

According to the report, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Spain are countries where the old are now significantly happier than the young, while Portugal and Greece show the opposite pattern.

Happiness among the youth, aged 15-24, has also fallen sharply in North America while Central and Eastern Europe saw the largest increases.

The report stated that happiness had declined in the Middle East and North Africa, with larger falls for those in the middle age groups than for the old and the young.

War-torn Afghanistan and Lebanon remain the two unhappiest countries in the survey.

The first World Happiness Report from the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which is a United Nations global initiative, was published in 2012. 

(Production: Ilze Filks)