Lonely Planet blog

Here’s a hint: it gets really cold in winter.

Would this scenery contribute to your quality of life?

The United Nations has released its 2009 edition of the Human Development Report, which seeks to measure quality of life across the globe. This year’s report contains a few surprises.

Topping the list was Norway, owing to its high standard of medical care and educational system. A close runner up was Australia, which climbed several spots to get the silver medal.

Chillier countries performed admirably, with Iceland, Canada and Ireland rounding out the top five. Perhaps when the weather’s bad you have to work harder at making your country more livable.

The top Asian country was Japan, coming in at number 10. As for the countries with the highest populations, China came in at 92, India at 134 and the United States at 13. The United Kingdom continued a slow slide, dropping to 21.

Poor Africa dominated the bottom of the rankings, making up the bottom 20 countries (with the exception of Afghanistan, which came in second last at 181). The lowest quality of life? That’s in Niger.

According to the UN, these camels have a tough life

What do you think? Fair rankings, or is the UN measuring the wrong things?

The top 10

• Norway
• Australia
• Iceland
• Canada
• Ireland
• Netherlands
• Sweden
• France
• Switzerland
• Japan

The bottom 10

• Guinea-Bissau
• Burundi
• Chad
• Democratic Republic of Congo
• Burkina Faso
• Mali
• Central African Republic
• Sierra Leone
• Afghanistan
• Niger

Hide 14 comments

1. October 6, 2009 bekobigsmile Report this comment

   where is the rest of the UN report?

2. October 6, 2009 VivekW Report this comment

   Hey bekobigsmile,

   It’s linked in the first paragraph under the photo.

   vivek

3. October 6, 2009 travelfusionuk Report this comment

   Really interesting! I saw all of these listings and just wonder if I could handle the cold!

4. October 6, 2009 markiyan Report this comment

   2 travelfusionuk – same here ;)

   I guess it`s all because of History…. world history..
   wonder if there will be time when most of countries will be in appr. same position…. before there’ll be 10 countries in the world

5. October 7, 2009 wherebjimmyb Report this comment

   Not a single Pacific island nation listed? The Fijians know a thing or two about the “good life”. Sitting around a campfire each night, banging out tunes on the decrepant musical instruments, singing like angels and all seemingly without a care in the world. They get my vote.

6. October 7, 2009 jessicaabruno Report this comment

   I’m with what travelfusionuk and markiyan said here.

7. October 7, 2009 leyls Report this comment

   sorry LP, I can’t really keep this short and sweet…
   I’m just wondering what the indicators for happiness were that the UN used to gather these results. ‘Quality of life’ and ‘happiness’? the first category tends to be based on monetary assessments, which WOW! Norway – most expensive country in Europe no? Where are suicide rates factored in, creative and social freedoms, the people in these countries living in poverty? Indigenous communities who have experienced genocide, ha! fun times? Maybe these countries are so ‘happy’ because they have mastered boarder protectionism, keeping out all those ’sad sods’ or asylum seekers, from the so called bottom of the list… Yes Sweden, you do take in the most refugees annually, but they have reached Europe illegally, considering many ‘developed’ countries spend 2-3, to 12 times the amount on boarder protection than they do on protecting refugees. It’s an industry on both sides, who are the smugglers? There are so many problems with this! condescending and shameful in it’s inadequacy to take into account any non super westernised countries!!! once again, well done UN :)

8. October 7, 2009 VivekW Report this comment

   Hi leyls,

   The major sources used by the report are listed here: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/understanding/sources/

   vivek

9. October 8, 2009 What country has the best quality of life? – Lonely Planet blog | Work4Real | Whatever be your curiosity, tuned on information Report this comment

   [...] Show original post here [...]

10. October 14, 2009 exodustravels Report this comment

    I can see why Norway has won- enviable education and health care systems and it is stunning, as the photograph depicts!

11. October 14, 2009 mblara1 Report this comment

    Is it about being happy or being rich?! Quality of live in those standards simple means that those countries are rich, not that they are happy countries. You can just take a minute to look at their suicide rate, and the suicide list of the ones at the bottom of the list… having easier life doesn’t make people happier…

12. October 14, 2009 echolulu Report this comment

    how come Japan is the top in Asia? It has such a high rate of suicide committing and its people r always under pressure..

13. October 15, 2009 megsykins Report this comment

    Well, both Ireland and Iceland’s economies have collapsed in the last year or so which makes me wonder how up-to-date the UN’s data is.
    Backing Australia as greatest for quality of life – not cold either :D

14. October 16, 2009 anna_j Report this comment

    Are you all just jealous beacause you don´t live in one of the top-10 countries?
    I live in Sweden and love it! Concerning the cold, it´s not that bad. You get snow in the winter in the northern U.S. too, right?