Northern Ireland happiest place in Britain: ONS

Northern Ireland became the happiest regions of Britain as its average rating of happiness is higher than any other three regions, a survey released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on Wednesday.

According to the ONS latest survey, the Personal Well-being in the UK, 2014/2015, showed that British people's personal well-being has been improving every year since financial year ending 2012, when ONS started to collect the data.

ONS measures the data by four aspects, including people's life satisfaction, feelings life was worthwhile, happiness and anxiety.

Figure showed people in Northern Ireland gave higher average ratings for personal well-being for all measures except anxiety compared to the other three regions in Britain, and this has been the case in every year since data were first collected.

Among districts and cities of Northern Ireland, as well as the whole country, Fermanagh and Omagh, a district in southwest NI became the happiest place of the country, with its rating of happiness reached 8.26 out of 10.

Bolsover, a small town in east midlands of England, was the least happiness place as its rating of happiness only 6.89.

People in London reported lower personal well-being on average for each of the measures than the equivalent British averages, but London has seen improvements across all the average measures of personal well-being, particularly in reductions to anxiety since data were first collected.

The average of happiness rating of London was 7.38, life satisfaction was 7.50, life worthwhile was 7.73 and anxiety reached 3.01.

ONS said that Wales was the only region that did not have any significant positive improvements between the financial year ending 2014, comparing with England, Scotland and NI. Endit