Lebanon topped the Middle East at No. 25. according to an unusual new report that analyses smiling selfies on Instagram.
Jetpac, a startup known for their social travel guide app, has analyzed more than 150 million Instagram posts in 6,000 worldwide cities to come up with a ranking of the happiest countries on the globe.
Jetpac compiled the rankings by coming up with what they call a "smile score" for each country, a measure determined by analyzing how often residents were smiling in Instagram photos. The bigger the smile, the higher the smile score.
A country's overall smile score was determined by averaging the scores each photo's smile received.
While the study ranked Brazilians as the happiest people in the world, Lebanon topped the Middle East.
Although the coming news everyday from Lebanon does not imply any happiness, but this thing only proves that the Lebanese people love life regardless of everything that is going on in their country and they try to overcome war and guns with a smile. And The Kindness Project is a witness on that, because we are getting daily kindness stories from the Middle East.
Lebanese value the little things in life. That's why you see them smiling in their photos. And they are working on spreading kindness to make their country a better place.
Here's the complete ranking. Scores are out of 100 points.
1. Brazil 60.8
2. Nicaragua 59.4
3. Colombia 49.8
4. Bolivia 48.1
5. Costa Rica 47.4
6. Honduras 47.2
7. Venezuela 45.2
8. Philippines 44.8
9. Guatemala 42.0
10. Mexico 40.1
11. Macedonia 40.1
12. Kazakhstan 39.6
13. Panama 39.4
14. El Salvador 36.2
15. Ecuador 35.3
16. Moldova 34.1
17. Netherlands Antilles 34.1
18. South Africa 33.6
19. Romania 33.4
20. Chile 33.4
21. Puerto Rico 33.2
22. Paraguay 32.9
23. Dominican Republic 32.7
24. Iceland 32.0
25. Lebanon 31.0
26. Peru 31.0
27. Uruguay 31.0
28. Laos 30.9
29. Serbia 30.5
30. Luxembourg 30.4
31. Ireland 30.4
32. Argentina 30.0
33. United States 29.7
34. Egypt 29.6
35. Kyrgyzstan 29.4
36. Ukraine 29.3
37. Albania 29.2
38. Angola 29.0
39. Turkey 28.9
40. Russia 27.5
41. Malta 27.4
42. Thailand 27.2
43. Portugal 27.1
44. Israel 26.9
45. Canada 26.7
46. Myanmar 26.5
47. Ghana 26.4
48. Bangladesh 26.2
49. Australia 26.2
50. Nigeria 26.1
51. Uzbekistan 26.0
52. Aruba 25.7
53. Bosnia and Herzegovina 25.6
54. Indonesia 25.5
55. Cyprus 25.3
56. Bahamas 25.2
57. Armenia 25.1
58. Malaysia 24.9
59. Bulgaria 24.7
60. Belgium 24.5
61. Trinidad and Tobago 24.4
62. United Kingdom 24.3
63. Norway 24.2
64. Brunei 24.2
65. Italy 23.8
66. Belarus 23.7
67. New Zealand 23.2
68. Singapore 22.7
69. Greece 22.3
70. Tunisia 22.2
71. Slovakia 22.1
72. Barbados 21.2
73. Azerbaijan 21.1
74. Hungary 20.9
75. France 20.8
76. Iraq 20.6
77. Vietnam 20.4
78. Jamaica 20.0
79. Morocco 20.0
80. Spain 20.0
81. India 19.9
82. Netherlands 19.6
83. Georgia 19.5
84. Finland 19.3
85. Nepal 19.3
86. Virgin Islands, British 19.2
87. Denmark 19.0
88. Kenya 18.8
89. Monaco 18.5
90. Croatia 18.4
91. Tanzania 18.2
92. Jordan 17.9
93. Sri Lanka 17.5
94. Palestine 17.4
95. Pakistan 17.2
96. Switzerland 17.1
97. Lithuania 17.1
98. Austria 16.8
99. Czech Republic 16.5
100. Sweden 16.1
101. Germany 15.6
102. Montenegro 15.5
103. Slovenia 15.5
104. Latvia 15.4
105. Poland 14.8
106. Mauritius 14.7
107. Andorra 14.6
108. Qatar 14.6
109. Estonia 14.4
110. Cambodia 13.5
111. Taiwan 13.4
112. Macao 13.3
113. Oman 13.3
114. Hong Kong 13.2
115. United Arab Emirates 12.9
116. China 12.4
117. Bahrain 11.7
118. Iran 11.7
119. Saudi Arabia 11.6
120. Maldives 9.8
121. Vatican City 9.8
122. Kuwait 9.7
123. South Korea 9.5
124. Japan 4.1
By Heidi Shebaro
Founder of "The Kindness Project in the Middle East", a teacher and a blogger
