Rational choice where to live
There is a ton of various statistical data out there. Tey are available to anyone with internet and a basic knowledge of mathematics. There is Big Mac index, Obesity index, Hapiness index and may more. We travel for fun, we marry for love and visit tons of places.
Is there a perfect place for living? I decided to dig a little into the statistics, combine results and weight in my life values. Starting from the individual rankings to complex table of Best countries for living, by my personal preferences. Here we go…
Where is the happiest place
There is actually a ranking of countries by Hapiness. A group of individuals validate several factors in order to compare the living situation in various countries. Factors weighet in are by their own words:
“Income, health, having someone
to count on, having a sense of
freedom to make key life decisions,
generosity, and the absence of
corruption all play strong roles in
supporting life evaluations.”
Top 20 Countries by Hapiness Index 2023
| Ranking | Country name |
| 1 | Finland |
| 2 | Denmark |
| 3 | Iceland |
| 4 | Israel |
| 5 | Netherlands |
| 6 | Sweden |
| 7 | Norway |
| 8 | Switzerland |
| 9 | Luxembourg |
| 10 | New Zealand |
| 11 | Austria |
| 12 | Australia |
| 13 | Canada |
| 14 | Ireland |
| 15 | United States |
| 16 | Germany |
| 17 | Belgium |
| 18 | Czech Republic |
| 19 | United Kingdom |
| 20 | Lithuania |
Source: https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2023/#appendices-and-data
Where people make the most money
Some people could say that money buys hapiness. I observed that “rich countries” rank rather higher in the Hapiness index so I followed into detail what had such a big influence on the ranking. It is obvious that a productive country can really invest in what is reasonable, develop all sorts of services and offers of its inhabitants. Historically, with wide variety of options grows income. It is a game of neverending in-out chasing. As you can see, some of the countries have made both lists, so far.
Top 20 Countries by Income
| Ranking | Country | Median Income | Mean Income | GDP Per Capita (PPP) |
| 1 | Luxembourg | $26 321 | $31 376 | $12 459 |
| 2 | United Arab Emirates | $24 292 | $27 017 | $70 089 |
| 3 | Norway | $22 684 | $25 272 | $70 005 |
| 4 | Switzerland | $2 149 | $25 787 | $72 376 |
| 5 | United States | $19 306 | $25 332 | $65 297 |
| 6 | Canada | $18 652 | $22 042 | $51 668 |
| 7 | Austria | $18 405 | $20 718 | $60 418 |
| 8 | Sweden | $17 625 | $20 193 | $56 632 |
| 9 | Denmark | $17 432 | $20 304 | $62 089 |
| 10 | Netherlands | $17 154 | $1 969 | $61 285 |
| 11 | Australia | $17 076 | $21 329 | $53 381 |
| 12 | Iceland | $17 017 | $193 | $60 132 |
| 13 | Germany | $16 845 | $1 973 | $5 753 |
| 14 | France | $16 372 | $19 409 | $50 992 |
| 15 | Finland | $16 332 | $18 742 | $53 171 |
| 16 | Belgium | $16 157 | $17 917 | $56 348 |
| 17 | United Kingdom | $14 793 | $18 133 | $49 931 |
| 18 | Malta | $14 543 | $16 509 | $47 578 |
| 19 | Ireland | $1 452 | $17 938 | $89 683 |
| 20 | Japan | $14 255 | $17 095 | $43 593 |
Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country
Where people are the most fit
Personally, I need to do sports. I love to move, work with my body and even it may not be 2-phase training or 40 hours a week on a bike, it makes me happy. Workout routines are one of the major players when it comes to being fit. Another one is eating habits and generally country’s cousine. Obviously, food is transported worldwide nowadays so you could cook anything anywhere. Despite this fact, there are huge differences what people, eat, when and how. This reflects on their health, movement abilities, hobbies, general mood and much more. As a father, I care where my family lives, what we eat. So, let’s have a look on obesity index. here comes inverted list showing the countries with least obesity. I selected list of child obesity.
Unfortunatelly, a lot of data behind this table is rather old (some as old as 2013). Second factor to be considered is that many of these countries have opposite problem – their children are starving. It is with a great caution to interpret this data. My suggestion is to consider developed countries. After these adjustments and filters applied, I came up with the following table (numbers represent % in population).
Top 20 Countries with the least children obesity
| Ranking | Country | All children | Boys | Girls |
| 1 | India | 5 | 5 | 4,9 |
| 2 | Bangladesh | 7,02 | 6,04 | 8,03 |
| 3 | Kenya | 7,8 | 2,2 | 13,2 |
| 4 | Japan | 7,9 | 10,5 | 4,9 |
| 5 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 9,3 | 8 | 10,7 |
| 6 | Ghana | 9,4 | 4,2 | 14,9 |
| 7 | Myanmar | 9,5 | 9,5 | 9,6 |
| 8 | Mongolia | 10,1 | 9,7 | 10,5 |
| 9 | Saudi Arabia | 10,5 | 9,4 | 11,3 |
| 10 | Pakistan | 11,2 | 9,9 | 12,7 |
| 11 | Netherlands | 11,5 | 10,9 | 12,1 |
| 12 | Philippines | 13,1 | 13,5 | 11,7 |
| 13 | Marshall Islands | 13,3 | 15,4 | 11,3 |
| 14 | Algeria | 13,7 | 10,9 | 16,3 |
| 15 | Zimbabwe | 13,8 | 13,1 | 14,3 |
| 16 | Afghanistan | 14,2 | 15,6 | 12,7 |
| 17 | Tanzania | 15 | 14 | 16 |
| 18 | Albania | 15,3 | 16,8 | 13,8 |
| 19 | Guyana | 15,3 | 14,6 | 15,9 |
| 20 | Tunisia | 15,3 | 13,6 | 16,8 |
Source: https://data.worldobesity.org/tables/prevalence-of-child-overweight-including-obesity-3/
Where are the best universities
Previous generation taught us (or tried) that education is the most important. As much as it really helps understanding a lot of complex problems, the simple owning an accademic diploma doesn’t guarantee anything. Arguably, life experience, perseverence, contacts gained, social skills learned and all the sauce going with the studies do have a huge influence. There is an annually updated list of the best universities in the world. I downloaded the full date and averaged the universities points over each country to arrive to a list of the best countries to study in by the overall academic (university) education. There may be single universities that do not fit this ranking.
Top 20 Countries by General University Quality
| Ranking | Country |
| 1 | Netherlands |
| 2 | Switzerland |
| 3 | Luxembourg |
| 4 | Denmark |
| 5 | Belgium |
| 6 | Australia |
| 7 | Germany |
| 8 | Sweden |
| 9 | Austria |
| 10 | United Arab Emirates |
| 11 | Canada |
| 12 | Ireland |
| 13 | United Kingdom |
| 14 | Cyprus |
| 15 | Norway |
| 16 | Iceland |
| 17 | United States |
| 18 | Finland |
| 19 | France |
| 20 | Estonia |
I would also like to add another very important factor. I recognize the high quality of universities on this list but with the same breath I need to personally object the financing schema. It is my personal nightmare that my child would start adult life with a huge finantial debt coming from the education. It is my personal opinion that there are smarter options out there. Find the advised table including starting costs per year of study. As you can see, there are plenty of high quality universities that do not lead to decades of paying interest, obligations to banks and strings attached.
Top 20 Countries with Free or Reasonably-priced Education
| Univerisities Ranking | Country | Cost EU citizens from | Cost non EU citizens from |
| 1 | Netherlands | 2 314€ | 6 000€ |
| 2 | Switzerland | 400€ | 400€ |
| 3 | Luxembourg | 1 200€ | 1 200€ |
| 4 | Denmark | 0€ | 6 000€ |
| 5 | Belgium | 835€ | 2 505€ |
| 7 | Germany | 0€ | 0€ |
| 8 | Sweden | 0€ | 7 500€ |
| 9 | Austria | 0€ | 1 524€ |
| 14 | Cyprus | 0€ | 6 834€ |
| 15 | Norway | 0€ | 13 000€ |
| 16 | Iceland | 0€ | 0€ |
| 18 | Finland | 0€ | 4 000€ |
| 19 | France | 170€ | 2 770€ |
| 20 | Estonia | 1 660€ | 1 660€ |
| 21 | Italy | 900€ | |
| 25 | Portugal | 550€ | 550€ |
| 26 | Malta | 0€ | 1 080€ |
| 28 | Spain | 1 200€ | |
| 29 | Latvia | 1 200€ | 2 500€ |
| 30 | Greece | 0€ | 1 500€ |
Source: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2023/world-ranking#!/length/-1/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/scores, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_precipitation
Where housing is the cheapest
This part is quite tricky as the tables I could find relate mostly to the situation of locals. They consider income-cost ration for buying and renting. The tricky part is that income needs to be weighted in. Until I figure out how to compare relatively, the following table will show the cheapest real estate by country from the locals POV.
Top 20 Countries with the Cheapest Real Estate (For Its Inhabitants)
| Rank | Country | Price To Income Ratio |
| 1 | Iceland | 5.9 |
| 2 | Belgium | 6.4 |
| 3 | Denmark | 6.7 |
| 4 | Netherlands | 6.7 |
| 5 | Spain | 7.1 |
| 6 | Ireland | 7.3 |
| 7 | Finland | 8.1 |
| 8 | Norway | 8.2 |
| 9 | United Kingdom | 8.4 |
| 10 | Latvia | 8.6 |
| 11 | Bulgaria | 8.7 |
| 12 | Sweden | 9.1 |
| 13 | Italy | 9.2 |
| 14 | Luxembourg | 10.1 |
| 15 | Germany | 10.2 |
| 16 | Estonia | 10.2 |
| 17 | Austria | 10.6 |
| 18 | France | 10.8 |
| 19 | Switzerland | 11.0 |
| 20 | Moldova | 11.1 |
Source: https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment
Where is the most sun and rain
There are studies saying that sun has a positive influence on the people’s mood and health. Thanks to weather stations we can measure quite precisely how much sunlight and rain falls in various regions. I used medians over the countries to make the following two tables.
Top 20 Countries with The Most Sunlight
| Ranking | Country | Hours of sun per year |
| 1 | Namibia | 3727 |
| 2 | Egypt | 3570 |
| 3 | Sudan | 3557 |
| 4 | United Arab Emirates | 3509 |
| 5 | Oman | 3493 |
| 6 | Botswana | 3372 |
| 7 | Eritrea | 3356 |
| 8 | Chad | 3353 |
| 9 | Mauritania | 3332 |
| 10 | Cyprus | 3314 |
| 11 | Israel | 3311 |
| 12 | Djibouti | 3279 |
| 13 | Algeria | 3274 |
| 14 | Iraq | 3241 |
| 15 | Saudi Arabia | 3237 |
| 16 | Burkina Faso | 3209 |
| 17 | Niger | 3201 |
| 18 | Libya | 3178 |
| 19 | Afghanistan | 3175 |
| 20 | South Africa | 3173 |
Top 20 Countries with the Most Rainwater
Water gives life, makes everything green and fertile. Green colour calms mind. I consider water reserves also a safety factor for the country’s future. Although some wars were and are being fought over water…
| Rank | Country | Average precipitation (mm per year) |
| 1 | Luxembourg | 934 000 |
| 2 | Comoros | 900 000 |
| 3 | South Sudan | 900 000 |
| 4 | France | 867 000 |
| 5 | Portugal | 854 000 |
| 6 | Ethiopia | 848 000 |
| 7 | Belgium | 847 000 |
| 8 | Gambia | 836 000 |
| 9 | Italy | 832 000 |
| 10 | Slovakia | 824 000 |
| 11 | Eswatini | 788 000 |
| 12 | Lesotho | 788 000 |
| 13 | Netherlands | 778 000 |
| 14 | Mexico | 758 000 |
| 15 | Burkina Faso | 748 000 |
| 16 | United States | 715 000 |
| 17 | Denmark | 703 000 |
| 18 | Germany | 700 000 |
| 19 | Tajikistan | 691 000 |
| 20 | Senegal | 686 000 |
Other Indexes
if you want, you can also consider traffic situation, air quality, amount of labor hours and many more factors. I chose the ones above from my personal perspective as I dove more and more into the topic. One of other factors I didn’t present here is average land elevation as I really love mountains and would love to live close to them. I also consider inahbited areas in my own country over-populated. I would love to have more space, air, privace, solitude. I made a population density index as well. So, the next step is really a personal preference.
Where do I want to live
My personal conclusion out of all these facts is the following table of preference. I was very positively surprised by the ranking of my own country (Czechia). We complain about almost everything, still we ranked very frequently close to the top 20 if not higher. In my final ranking, Czechia ended up on the 22nd place.
| Personal calculated ranking | Country |
| 1 | Switzerland |
| 2 | Netherlands |
| 3 | Luxembourg |
| 4 | Denmark |
| 5 | Norway |
| 6 | Iceland |
| 7 | Finland |
| 8 | Austria |
| 9 | Sweden |
| 10 | Belgium |
| 11 | Australia |
| 12 | Canada |
| 14 | Germany |
| 15 | United States |
| 16 | Ireland |
| 18 | Israel |
| 19 | France |
| 20 | United Kingdom |
In case anyone is interested in the full data tables, send me an email, I can share a link. let me know how your country is doing and what surprised you.
