The United Nations has made it official: UAE is the 28th happiest country in the world according to theWorld Happiness Report 2016.

The report ranked 157 countries based on happiness levels using factors such as per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and healthy years of life expectancy.

UAE ranked the highest in the GCC with Saudi Arabia at 34 Qatar at 36 Kuwait at 41 and Bahrain at 42.

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Denmark perhaps better known for its fictional suicide-agonising prince Hamlet and fierce marauding Vikings than being a nation of the happiest people has just won that very accolade. Again.

India and Pakistan areranked 118 and 92 respectively in the list implying thatthe people inPakistan are happier than in India.

See full list of countries here.

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Why is Denmark happy?

Even US Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have singled out the small Scandinavian country as an example of a happy well-oiled society.

Knud Christensen a 39-year-old social worker knows one reason why his compatriots are laid-back - they feel secure in a country with few natural disasters little corruption and a near absence of drastic events.

"We have no worries" Christensen said smiling as he stood on a Copenhagen street near the capital's City Hall. "And if we do worry it's about the weather. Will it rain today or remain gray or will it be cold?"

The Scandinavian nation of 5.6 million has held the happy title twice before since the world body started measuring happiness around the world in 2012. The accolade is based on a variety of factors: People's health and access to medical care family relations job security and social factors including political freedom and degree of government corruption.

Egalitarian Denmark where women hold 43 percent of the top jobs in the public sector is known for its extensive and generous cradle-to-grave welfare.

Few complain about the high taxes as in return they benefit from a health care system where everybody has free access to a general practitioner and hospitals. Taxes also pay for schools and universities and students are given monthly grants for up to seven years.

Many feel confident that if they lose their jobs or fall ill the state will support them.

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'Happiness should be on every nation's agenda'

Jeffrey Sachs from Columbia University one of those behind the report says that happiness and well-being should be on every nation's agenda.

"Human well-being should be nurtured through a holistic approach that combines economic social and environmental objectives" he said in a statement before the World Happiness Report 2016 was to be officially presented in Rome on Wednesday.

The Roman Catholic Church welcomed the study declaring that happiness is "linked to the common good which makes it central to Catholic social teaching" according to Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo one of Pope Francis' key advisers.

Kaare Christensen a university professor in demography and epidemiology in Odense where fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen was born says it doesn't take much to satisfy Danes.

"They are happy with what they get. Danes have no great expectations about what they do or what happens to them" she said

Detailing on the poll method used in the UAE the report states

"In 2013 Gallup changed from face-to-face interviewing to telephone surveying (both cell phone and landline) in Malaysia the United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia Qatar Kuwait Bahrain and Iraq.

In addition Gallup added interviews in English as a language of interview in addition to Arabic in the United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia Qatar Kuwait and Bahrain in an effort to reach the large non-Arab expatriate population. Due to the three-year rolling average this is the first report to no longer include face-to-face data from those countries. In addition Gallup switched from face-to-face interviewing to telephone interviewing in Turkey in 2014.

Caution should be used when comparing these data across time periods. The United Arab Emirates was especially affected by the changes in survey methods in part because of its newly sampled non-Emirati population. This has caused its ranking to drop for technical reasons unrelated to life in the UAE. Where the expatriate population is very large it comes to dominate the overall averages based on the total resident population.

The UAE provides a good example case as it has the largest population share of expatriates among the Gallup countries and has sample sizes large enough to make a meaningful comparison. Splitting the UAE sample into two groups would give a 2013-2015 Emirati ladder average of 7.06 (ranking 15th in Figure 2.2) and a non-Emirati average 6.48 (ranking 31st) very close to the overall average of 6.57 (ranking 28th.)"