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Where You Live Can Increase Your Happiness (with a Ranking of the Happiest States in America)

Can your location make you happy? According to a new study, it definitely seems to be the case.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on December 20 2009
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Image: iStockphoto

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Let’s say you live in Hawaii (lucky you), and you’re rarely seen without a smile on your face. Meanwhile, your sister in Manhattan has an ulcer every six months.  Is it just chance that you seem to be so much happier?

Nope: as real estate agents say, the key is location, location, location. Where you live really can impact your happiness, as a comprehensive study recently confirmed.

In the study, Americans from all 50 states and the District of Columbia were asked a series of questions to judge their happiness level. Then, their answers were assessed according to where they lived, with each location ranked according to its climate, home costs, and other conditions that might affect a resident’s happiness.

“We wanted to study whether people’s feelings of satisfaction with their own lives are reliable, that is, whether they match up to reality — of sunshine hours, congestion, air quality, etc — in their own state,” said one of the researchers, Andre Oswald of England’s University of Warwick.

They found a close correlation between states where they’d expect people to be happiest, and their actual happiness. And they’re probably not all what you’d expect.

For instance, California comes in near the bottom, despite its natural beauty—likely due to the high cost of living. The same is true for several other states that boast high income and booming cities. “Many people think these states would be marvelous places to live in,” said Oswald. “The problem is that if too many individuals think that way, they move into those states, and the resulting congestion and house prices make it a non-fulfilling prophecy.”

So what are the happiest states? Here’s the list, from top to bottom.

1. Louisiana (data was taken pre-Katrina, so things may have changed)
  2. Hawaii
  3. Florida
  4. Tennessee
  5. Arizona
  6. Mississippi
  7. Montana
  8. South Carolina
  9. Alabama
  10. Maine
  11. Alaska
  12. North Carolina
  13. Wyoming
  14. Idaho
  15. South Dakota
  16. Texas
  17. Arkansas
  18. Vermont
  19. Georgia
  20. Oklahoma
  21. Colorado
  22. Delaware
  23. Utah
  24. New Mexico
  25. North Dakota
  26. Minnesota
  27. New Hampshire
  28. Virginia
  29. Wisconsin
  30. Oregon
  31. Iowa
  32. Kansas
  33. Nebraska
  34. West Virginia
  35. Kentucky
  36. Washington
  37. District of Columbia
  38. Missouri
  39. Nevada
  40. Maryland
  41. Pennsylvania
  42. Rhode Island
  43. Massachusetts
  44. Ohio
  45. Illinois
  46. California
  47. Indiana
  48. Michigan
  49. New Jersey
  50. Connecticut
  51. New York

Filed under: Features, General Interest, Health and Wellbeing, Science,

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