According to The Portugal News, the Institute for Quality of Life annually produces a ranking of the 250 happiest cities on the planet. Portugal has five cities on the list and one of them is in the Algarve.
According to the Happy City Index (ranking prepared by the Institute for Quality of Life), cited by Meteored, the objective of this list is to define the 250 happiest cities on the planet annually.
Of the 37 happiest cities in the world, known as “Golden ‘Happiest’ Cities”, Portugal has no representatives in this prominent category. In the Happy City Index 2024, the “Silver Cities” and “Bronze Cities” sections range, respectively, from 38th to 100th place and from 101st to 250th place in the happiness ranking. The first Portuguese city to appear in this index is Lisbon, ranked 96th in the “Silver Cities”.
The Institute for Quality of Life, cited by Meteored, states that “it is not possible to identify a city that can be unanimously considered the best in terms of ensuring the happiness of its citizens in a long-term perspective. (…) Therefore, we did not create a ranking that assessed which city was the happiest. With objectivity, however, we were able to designate a group of cities that form a class of the happiest cities on the planet. Every year, this number is different, depending on the indicators and point values received from our reports”.
The themes explored in the research conducted by the scientists were the following: Citizens, Governance, Environment, Economy, and Mobility. For each of these indicators, a maximum score and a total score (the sum of all indicators) were assigned.
