According to a map doing the rounds, two regions stand out where more than half the locals consider themselves happy: a broad swathe across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Northern England, and the central uplands of Turkey.
Smaller outposts of joy also show up the low countries, Sweden, Switzerland and western Turkey.
The map, whose provenance and sourcing is unclear (in a thread at Reddit, one poster suggests the World Values Survey), sees happiness drain as one heads into heavily urbanized areas and the east. London and Paris stand out as slightly less happy than the surrounding arcadian western countryside. Russia is an empire of misery.
Lithuanians and Hungarians report the grimmest lives of all, with less than 5 percent happy.
The map's data ends at 2008, though—before the great recession—and more recent polls suggest that Lithuanians are now at least happier than folk in other baltic states, and that the Swiss are at least as pleased with life as Brits and Turks.
