I was awarded as the happiest person in the municipality of Pirkkala in 2026.

Pirkkala is Finland’s happiest municipality. Finland is the world’s happiest country. This may make me the world’s happiest person.

Although the claim sounds humorous, downright absurd even, when you think about it more carefully, the title of world’s happiest person isn’t really that far-fetched.

Link to the article in Pirkkalainen .

You cannot measure the happiness of every person in the world

How can the world’s happiest person be determined?

In theory, every individual could be interviewed or studied. But in practice, they can’t be.

Nor is comparable data available for nearly every individual that could be used to determine this scientifically.

What methods are there?

The same data is not available for every inhabitant of the planet. A fairly large group, however, has a digital footprint through, for example, social media. This could help us get close to finding the happiest person.

We could also first research what combination of characteristics would theoretically make a person happy, and then use available data sources to find the person who best meets the criteria.

Another option is to divide the search hierarchically into a few stages and use statistically representative samples at each stage.

By coincidence, researching this geographically is an easy and universal method: Country → Municipality → Person.

The world’s happiest country

Finland has been selected as the world’s happiest country in the World Happiness Report nine times in a row. In the latest report, published in spring 2026, we still held first place.

Finland’s happiness can perhaps be explained by the fact that we are content with very little.

The survey includes 140 countries. The missing countries are either small island nations or countries at war. Reliable data would not be available for these.

The world’s happiness pioneer Bhutan is not included in the study because the country criticized the evaluation methodology. In Bhutan, measuring GDP has been replaced with measuring happiness. I believe the absence has more to do with fear of facing the nine-time world champion.

Finland’s happiest municipality

Googling Finland’s happiest municipality gives Pirkkala, my home municipality, as the answer. Ilta-Sanomat conducted a study on this in 2023. Since then, papers specifically measuring happiness are nowhere to be found.

In annual research, Pirkkala has been Finland’s most attractive municipality in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

So there are solid grounds for Pirkkala’s title as Finland’s happiest municipality.

Pirkkala’s happiest person

Pirkkala municipality has now held a search for the happiest Pirkkalian at least twice.

Pirkkala has just over 20,000 residents, so the title doesn’t come easily.

The selection is made by a panel as the result of a thorough, in-depth, multi-stage analysis.

One criterion for being selected is completing the application form. But a person can hardly be the world’s happiest if they don’t believe it themselves.

And perhaps a pinch of luck belongs in the equation too.

Provably the world’s happiest

Am I absolutely the world’s happiest person? I don’t know. And no one can prove or measure such a thing.

And does it matter if one is, say, “only” in the happiest tenth of a promille (the happiest one ten-thousandth)? In that case, there would be nearly a million people in the world who are approximately equally happy, but fortunately happiness is not a zero-sum game.

With the available evaluation methods, however, I declare myself the world’s happiest person.