Taiwan the happiest place in Asia

Taiwan is the happiest place in Asia, according to the 2025 World Happiness Report, published Thursday.

Of the 147 places around the world that were ranked this year, it took the 27th spot, moving up from 31st last year, and dethroning Singapore’s top position on the list. Taiwan is a democratically self-ruled island that Beijing considers part of its territory. 

Topping the global happiness list this year is once again the Nordic countries, with Finland leading in first place for the eighth year in a row, followed by Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and the Netherlands.

The World Happiness Report is a joint effort by some of the world’s leading experts and researchers in well-being science. The happiness ranking is powered by data from the Gallup World Poll which measured individuals’ self-assessed life evaluations, averaged over a three-year period from 2022 to 2024.

Experts also analyzed data across six key factors:

• Gross domestic product per capita
• Social support
• Healthy life expectancy
• Freedom
• Generosity
• Corruption

While the happiness ranking is based on the respondents’ subjective ratings on their own quality of life, the six variables can help provide deeper insight and explain differences across nations, according to the report.

Here are the happiest places in Asia, according to the 2025 World Happiness Report:

1. Taiwan
2. Singapore
3. Vietnam
4. Thailand
5. Japan
6. Philippines
7. Republic of Korea
8. Malaysia
9. China
10. Mongolia

“This year’s report pushes us to look beyond traditional determinants like health and wealth. It turns out that sharing meals and trusting others are even stronger predictors of wellbeing than expected,” said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University and editor of the 2025 World Happiness Report.

Based on Gallup’s data, the report found that the impact of meal-sharing on subjective well-being is “on par with the influence of income and unemployment,” and those who share more meals with others report “significantly higher” levels of life satisfaction.

Notably, “Taiwanese people report having a high number of shared meals,” De Neve told CNBC Make It.

“They report that 5.5 dinners out of 7 are shared with others, and that 4.7 lunches are shared with others. [That’s] a total of 10.1 shared meals out of 14, which puts them in 8th position globally out of 142 countries in the sample,” said De Neve.

In contrast, other places in South and East Asia reported relatively low levels of meal sharing, according to the report.

“Past research has found that dining alone is on the rise in East Asian countries, most notably in Japan and the Republic of Korea. Two of the most commonly cited explanations are the rise of single-person households and demographic aging,” according to the report.

However, differences in how survey items were interpreted across regions may also play a role. “There are some indications that East and South Asian respondents may be less likely to consider family members or other members of their household as ‘someone you know,'” according to the report.

“In this era of social isolation and political polarization we need to find ways to bring people around the table again — doing so is critical for our individual and collective wellbeing,” said De Neve.

Another big gainer this year is Vietnam. The country has seen strong upward movement in the global happiness ranking, going from 54th place in 2024 to 46th this year. Within the past five years, the Southeast Asian country has jumped almost 40 places from 83rd in 2020.

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