NZ eighth happiest country in the world

New Zealand is the eighth happiest country in the world, according to a new analysis of data provided by the Gallup Poll.

Denmark tops the list as the happiest country.

Looking at data collected across 132 countries, the Gallup Organisation based their marks - released this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology - on representative samples of more than 136,000 people in each country.

Respondents were asked how they would rate their lives on a scale from zero (worst possible) to 10 (best possible), as well as answering a series of questions on positive or negative emotions.

The top 15 countries are Denmark and Finland (7.7), Norway, The Netherlands and Costa Rica (7.6), Canada and Switzerland (7.5), NEW ZEALAND (7.4), Sweden, Austria and Australia (7.3), United States (7.2), Belgium (7.1), Brazil and Panama (7.0).

- NZPA