Despite Disneyland's claim to be the happiest place on earth, we all know that happinessprovided by a 10-minute fantasy ride and gobs of cotton candyis only temporary. Is there a physical place where people, facing life's daily grind just as we do, are somehow nudged by their surroundings, their values, or their government into being the happiest people on the planet?  

For the past decade, social scientists and pollsters have given elaborate questionnaires to hundreds of thousands of people around the globe.  Two of the largest studies that rank the happiness of countries are the University of Leiscester's World Map of Happiness (http://www.le.ac.uk/users/aw57/world/sample.html) and the World Database of Happiness of Professor Ruut Veenhoven at Erasmus University Rotterdam (http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl)

Another treasure trove of data on wellbeing is the Gallup World Poll (http://www.gallup.com/consulting/worldpoll/24046/About.aspx). These happiness surveys ask people essentially the same question: how happy are you? The questions mine not only how happy respondents feel right now, but also how they feel about their entire lives. Dan Buettner, who has studied happiness and longevity around the world through his Blue Zones project (http://www.bluezones.com) says that mining these databases using social research techniques points to Denmark as the happiest place on earth. The U.S. may be the richest, most powerful country on the planet, but it ranks No. 23 when it comes to happiness. Singapore, it turns out, is the happiest of the Asian nations.

Buettner, a National Geographic explorer and writer, along with other insightful contributors tackled the why, where, and how of happiness in a recent ABC 20/20 special (Friday, January 13th). If you missed the broadcast of this well-crafted, fascinating report, you can watch it in streaming video segments here:  http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=4086092&page=1

It's well worth your time!