Over the past five years, the United Nations conducted a world-wide survey on happiness around the globe with the goal of creating a report that would inform policy makers on the well-being of their nation for use in national policy decision-making. The results show that many countries have improved their overall happiness during the time period of the study, and that many of the happiest countries are found in Northern Europe including nations like Sweden and Denmark. Canada followed closely, with much happiness based on higher life expectancy, higher median incomes, and strong community ties. Somewhat surprisingly (to me), the United States ranked 17^th in happiness, falling just under Mexico for total levels. Check out some handy infographics of the data at The Huffington Post.