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

Image: iStockphoto

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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