Kayla Zhu
2025-04-09 05:22:00
www.visualcapitalist.com
Which Countries in Middle East and Central Asia are Happiest?
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The Middle East typically has some of the widest disparities in happiness scores, with more wealthier countries like Israel ranking in the global top 10, while crisis-stricken nations such as Lebanon and Afghanistan occupy the lowest spots.
This map showcases the findings for countries in Central Asia and the Middle East from the 2025 World Happiness Report, an annual publication that measures global contentment based on life evaluations, social support, freedom of choice, GDP per capita, and additional indicators of well-being. The data is drawn from the Gallup World Poll and various supplementary sources.
Each nation’s score in the World Happiness Report reflects an average of life evaluations over a three-year span (2022–2024 for this edition), ranking countries from highest to lowest. A more detailed explanation of the report’s methodology can be found at the end of this article.
The Most and Least Happy Countries in the Region
Below, we show the happiness scores of countries in Central Asia and the Middle East from the World Happiness Report 2025.
Rank | Country | Region | Average Happiness Score (2022–2024) |
---|---|---|---|
8 | ![]() |
Middle East | 7.2 |
21 | ![]() |
Middle East | 6.8 |
30 | ![]() |
Middle East | 6.6 |
32 | ![]() |
Middle East | 6.6 |
43 | ![]() |
Asia | 6.4 |
52 | ![]() |
Middle East | 6.2 |
53 | ![]() |
Asia | 6.2 |
59 | ![]() |
Middle East | 6.0 |
75 | ![]() |
Asia | 5.9 |
87 | ![]() |
Asia | 5.5 |
90 | ![]() |
Asia | 5.4 |
94 | ![]() |
Asia | 5.3 |
99 | ![]() |
Middle East | 5.1 |
101 | ![]() |
Middle East | 5.0 |
106 | ![]() |
Asia | 4.9 |
108 | ![]() |
Middle East | 4.8 |
109 | ![]() |
Asia | 4.8 |
128 | ![]() |
Middle East | 4.3 |
140 | ![]() |
Middle East | 3.6 |
145 | ![]() |
Middle East | 3.2 |
147 | ![]() |
Middle East | 1.4 |
Despite the ongoing war, Israel has remained in the top 10 happiest countries in the world globally since 2022, and is consistently the happiest country in the region.
Economically, Israel stands out among its Middle Eastern counterparts, driven by a strong tech sector. The country’s GDP per capita is almost 17 times greater than its neighbor Egypt.
On the other end, Afghanistan continues to be the unhappiest country in the world for its sixth consecutive year.
After the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban seized control of the country, imposing a regime that has stripped millions of Afghan women of personal freedoms, including access to education, employment, and basic human rights.
In addition, the Taliban have carried out widespread human rights violations, including crackdowns on journalists and activists, arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial killings, and the suppression of dissent across Afghan society.
The country also continues to struggle with significant economic challenges, and more than 90% of Afghans struggling with poverty and increasing food insecurity.
Where does this data come from?
Source: The World Happiness Report which leverages data from the Gallup World Poll.
Methodology: The World Happiness Report derives its rankings from Gallup World Poll data, surveying approximately 1,000 people per country per year across 140+ countries. The total sample size typically exceeds 140,000 respondents annually. The rankings are based on three-year averages, from 2022 to 2024. Respondents evaluate their lives using the Cantril Ladder, a 0-to-10 scale. The rankings are based on six key factors: GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom to make life choices, generosity (measured by charitable acts), and perceptions of corruption. In addition to life evaluations, the report examines emotional well-being through positive and negative affect indicators, such as laughter, worry, and sadness. The 2025 edition also emphasizes social trust and benevolence, analyzing behaviors like sharing meals, helping strangers, and returning lost wallets to assess how caring and community engagement contribute to happiness.
Criticisms: Critics of the World Happiness Report point out that survey questions measure satisfaction with socioeconomic conditions as opposed to individual emotional happiness. As well, there are myriad cultural differences around the world that influence how people think about happiness and life satisfaction. Finally, there can be big differences in life satisfaction between groups within a country, which are averaged out even in a nationally representative group. The report does acknowledge inequality as a factor by measuring the “gap” between the most and least happy halves of each country.
Learn More on the Voronoi App 
To compare country happiness rankings from a different region, check out this graphic that visualizes the happiness levels across East Asia and Oceania.
The post Mapped: Happiness Levels Across the Middle East and Central Asia appeared first on Visual Capitalist.
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