Singapore Is 1 Of Only 3 Asian Cities Named In 'Gold' Category For Happy City Index 2024
The Lion City is also the only Southeast Asian country to be featured in the gold category.
By Sadho Ram — 25 Jun 2024, 05:47 PM
The latest Happy City Index by the UK-based Institute for Quality of Life has named 37 cities across the world under its gold category
The 'gold' category is disproportionately dominated by European countries such as Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, and Iceland, among others.
However, three cities from three different countries in Asia have found a place in this 'gold' category. They are Osaka (Japan), Seoul (South Korea), and Singapore, which is also the only Southeast Asian country to be named.
According to the Institute for Quality of Life, the Index looked into five key areas to narrow down the "golden happiest cities", namely: citizens, governance, environment, economy, and mobility.
"There is no statistical woman or man whose sense of happiness can be studied by locating her or him in different cities of the world. In each location, a bunch of other determinants affect the feeling of happiness," the Institute for Quality of Life wrote under its ranking methodology which used 24 different areas of activity.
Among the three cities from Asia, Singapore was ranked below Osaka and above Seoul in terms of total score, with 1,617.8 points
Overall, Osaka was ranked 31st, Singapore 34th, and Seoul 36th in the 'gold' category.
According to the Institute for Quality of Life, it does not intend to rank the cities by which is the happiest, but rather designate a group of cities to form a 'golden' class of happiness on the planet.
The UK-based project stated that, in total, 250 cities that could be measured based on "objective, transparent, and verifiable data" were included in the Happy City Index 2024.
"What is important — the ranking does not assess the activities of the authorities of these cities, but all those areas that directly affect the sense of happiness of residents," it asserted.
Meanwhile, the index listed the other 213 cities that failed to meet its 'golden' standard under the 'silver' and 'bronze' categories
Of these, 63 cities were placed under the 'silver' category, and 150 under the 'bronze' category.
While Malaysia also made it onto the Index with two cities, both received bronze titles.
Serdang, which is officially not recognised as a city by Malaysia, scored 1,357.4 points, coming in at 166th, and Kuala Lumpur was placed at 188th with a total score of 1,315.4.
The city that was placed 250th on the list is Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa, while Aarhus in Denmark was placed at the top of the list with a total score of 1,749.2.
