Lebanon is the least happy nation in the Middle East region, and Israel and Gulf nations are the most, while Turkey continues to decline in happiness rankings according to a new edition of the World Happiness Report released this week. 

The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s 2023 World Happiness Report ranks 137 countries based on several criteria including income, health and a sense of freedom to make key life decisions. The Middle East and North Africa is the least happy region after sub-Saharan Africa, the report shows, but a comparison of the 2022 and 2023 rankings shows that several countries including Israel, Iraq and Iran have become happier over the past year. 

Israel, which remains the happiest nation in the region, climbed to the fourth happiest country across the world from ninth. 

While Gulf nations, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and the region’s powerhouse Saudi Arabia are the second group of happiest countries in the broader Middle East and North Africa region, all three of them have become less so over the past year, the rankings showed.