TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Three Taiwanese cities made the list in the Happy City Index report released by the Institute for Quality of Life, based in London, UK. Taipei was ranked 46th, Kaohsiung 64th, and Taoyuan 88th.
Researchers scored cities on five areas having a direct impact on happiness: the people, governance, environment, economy, and mobility. These areas encompassed 24 subcategories, such as the education system and traffic safety. The Happy City Index report ranked 250 cities worldwide and grouped them into gold, silver, and bronze categories.
According to the Institute for Quality of Life's list, the 37 gold-ranked cities were not listed in numerical order. The city with the highest score was Aarhus in Denmark, followed by Zurich in Switzerland and Berlin in Germany.
For the U.S., only Minneapolis in Minnesota made it to the gold category. Minneapolis scored highly in the economy category, slightly outperforming Basel in Switzerland.
In Asia, Osaka in Japan, Singapore, and Seoul in South Korea were among the gold-ranked cities. The three Taiwanese cities, Tokyo in Japan, and Busan in South Korea, all fell within the silver category, ranking from 38th to 100th.
Cities ranked from 101st to 250th in the bronze category included Kyoto in Japan, Sydney in Australia, Vancouver and Montreal in Canada, Bangkok and Chiang Mai in Thailand, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and Nanjing and Wuhan in China.