For 2 years in a row, a United Nations report has ranked Finland the happiest place in the world to live, followed closely by other Scandinavian countries- (Denmark, Norway & Iceland.) The UK ranks as the 15th while the United State ranked 19th

But is Finland really the world’s happiest country?

Picture this;- A church choir in church delivers an amazing performance, but the audience does not cheer or applaud them- the audience remain muted with little or no expression-  That’s the typical Finnish man or woman, they barely express emotions publicly

A Nigerian Migrant to Finland named Olivia described on her YouTube channel what it’s like to live there, she described the country as a place where unnecessary chatter makes you looks silly. (People only talk if its absolutely necessary) According to her, In Finland – Silence is golden most of the time.

The Finnish people are mostly introverted-

A Finnish Blogger Aleksi who talks about lifestyle in Finland admitted that his fellow citizens love their personal space and hardly make friends, they don’t get excited about anything – and don’t discuss with foreigners.(Watch here)

When a vice TV reporter visited Finland, the Finnish people complained about the gloom that comes with having extremely long winter nights, the chilling cold and barely any sunshine

inspite of the people’s cold exterior, why would Finland be described as the happiest country in the world?

Its ranked as one of the safest countries in the world by the World economic forum–

Finland’s lands safety record is so good that some of the best tourist hotels are Igloos located in the middle of the forest with absolutely no security. Its OK for ladies to walk the streets at night without fear of being molested.

Citizens can completely rely on the food, air and environment as being clean- Its basically much neater and natural than most states in America, they are big on conservation and keep most of their trees.

Its a country with the most honest people in the world –

Readers digest conducted an honesty experiment in European countries – they dropped 12 wallets with cash in about 10 different countries. Finland recorded the highest honesty results – 11 wallets were returned with the money intact- See details here

In Finland, Education is free up to masters level. health care is regarded as a right not a privilege- terminal illness can be treated with as little as 60 dollars. The poor are adequately covered by welfare.

Men and women are 100% equal- they both take 480 days paid parental leave at work after child birth.By law Finnish people are mandated to take 25 days off work, primary child care giver are allowed to work from home.

Finland pays couples almost 3000 dollars for having at least two kids

Very recently, the Finnish government chose 2000 random unemployed citizens and paid them 600 dollars for a couple of months just to see what happens – ( no strings attached)

Finland are very eager to preserve their way of life, as a result they are not to keen on immigrants, infact some call them one of the most racist countries in Europe- especially the older ones.

Finland may not have people slapping high fives and laughing loudly in front of empty beer bottles- ( Naija Style). but its OK to assume they are probably the most content citizens in the world.