Well, despite being considered the loneliest city in America, it seems like the residents of Washington, D.C. aren’t that broken up about it considering that D.C. was just ranked one of the world’s happiest cities!
While this news was, for lack of a better word, surprising to us we had to break down the ranking and get an understanding of how D.C. was ranked the #4 happiest city in America and the #85 happiest city in the entire world!
How is D.C. one of the happiest cities in the world?
Well the ranking, which is called the “Happy City Index”, was first created by Institute for Quality of Life in 2017 to measure the quality of life in cities and the local factors the contributed or hindered feelings of happiness.
Since then, the Happy City Index has become an annual ranking in which many cities take great pride in being included.
The Happy City Index ranking is based on 5 core categories, each with a maximum score of around 400 points.
Here’s how D.C. scored in each of those categories:
- Citizens – 306,9 points
- Governance – 318,9 points
- Economy – 320,7 points
- Environment – 281,3 points
- Mobility – 275,9 points
This means that Washington, D.C.’s happiness score was 1503,7 out of roughly 2000 potential points.
Where did D.C. rank compared to other U.S. cities?
The Happy City Index was not explicitly focused on the U.S. – rather it focused on individual cities from countries around the world!
However, when you took a closer look to see how D.C. ranked among the happiest cities in America, we were the #4 happiest city in the country!
Along with D.C., the top five happiest cities in the U.S. were (in order):
- Minneapolis
- Boston
- Baltimore
- Washington, D.C.
- San Francisco
Naturally, considering D.C. also happens to be the most overworked city in the country, we didn’t expect to appear on this list on a national level, let alone on a global level!
That being said, D.C. does have a lot to be happy about, the D.C. food scene now has the highest density of Michelin-rated restaurants in the country, has won the best chef in the country for two years in a row, and also just claimed the best-emerging chef in the country award too!