What constitutes a good quality of life?
Of course, broad access to employment, food and shelter, health care and quality education are imperatives for a good quality of life. But apart from that, quality also includes invisible aspects like individual freedom, job security, political stability and environmental quality.
Scientists around the world agree that material wealth is not the most important factor in valuing a life well lived. The results of the Quality of Life sub-classification survey reflect this sensitivity.
The Quality of Life sub-ranking is based on an equally weighted average scores of nine country features that relate to the quality of life in a country: affordable, economically stable, family friendly, gender equality, good labor market, income, politically stable, secure, well-developed public education system and well-developed public health system. The Quality of Life sub-ranking score had a weight of 13.88% in the general ranking of the best countries.
Canada inhabits about two-fifths of the North American continent, making it the world’s second largest country after Russia. The country is casually populated, with most of its 35.5 million people living within 125 miles of the US border. Canada’s vast wilderness to the north plays an important role in Canadian identity, as does the country’s reputation for welcoming immigrants.
The Kingdom of Denmark emerged in the 10th century and comprises two island nations in the North Atlantic, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Together with Sweden and Norway, it forms Scandinavia, a cultural region of northern Europe.
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The Kingdom of Sweden, bounded by Norway to the west and the Baltic Sea to the east, spans much of the Scandinavian Peninsula and is one of the largest countries in the European Union in terms of land. The capital city Stockholm was declared in the 16th century, and border disputes in the Middle Ages established the modern nation.
The Kingdom of Norway is the westernmost country of the Scandinavian Peninsula, composed mainly of mountainous reliefs. Almost all of its population lives in the south, around the capital, Oslo. The Norwegian coastline is made up of thousands of kilometers of fjords, bays and island shores. The Norwegians developed a maritime culture and were active throughout the Viking Age, establishing colonies in Iceland and Greenland.
Switzerland, officially known as the Swiss Federation, is a small country in Central Europe made up of 16,000 square miles of Alps, lakes and valleys formed by glaciers. It is one of the richest countries in the world and has been known for centuries for its neutrality.
The Commonwealth of Australia occupies the Australian continent. The country also includes a few islands, most notably Tasmania. Indigenous peoples occupied the land for at least 40,000 years before the first British colonies in the 18th century.
Located on the edge of Western Europe, the Netherlands is a coastal plain dotted with windmills characteristic of its development around water. Three major European rivers – the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt – flow through neighboring Germany and Belgium in the country’s busy ports
Geography defines the culture and history of Northern Finland, one of the northernmost countries in the world. Bordered by Scandinavia, Russia, the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia, Finland and its vast expanses of heavily forested open land act as a northern gateway between west and east.
Germany, the most crowded nation in the European Union, has one of the world’s largest economies and has seen its role in the international community grow steadily since reunification. The central European country borders nine nations and its landscape differs, from the north plains stretching to the North and Baltic Seas to the Bavarian Alps in the south.
10. New Zealand
British and Polynesian influences run through picturesque New Zealand, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean in south-eastern Australia. The first Maori settlers ceded sovereignty to the British invaders with the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, and European settlers flocked. Today, 70 percent of Kiwis, a term common to New Zealanders after a native flightless bird, are of European family. A sense of pride has arisen among the Maori, the country’s earliest settlers, who now represent around 14%, as homeland grievances become more openly addressed.