It’s good to be a Finn, apparently, as the country claims the top spot in the World Happiness Ranking for the fourth year running.

Finland was followed in the top five by Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands, proving that temperature bears no impact on a person’s joy.

Australia ranked 12th, unchanged from the previous year.

The annual poll, collated through data and interviews, obviously had a major change this year (psst, the global pandemic), meaning its researchers weren’t able to visit the countries to chat to citizens face to face.

“We need urgently to learn from COVID-19,” said report co-editor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Centre for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

“The pandemic reminds us of our global environmental threats, the urgent need to co-operate, and the difficulties of achieving co-operation in each country and globally.”

Normally, the research evaluates GDP, life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom and corruption income to create its rankings.

But this year, researchers focused on examining each country’s relationship between wellbeing and COVID-19.

That’s how Finland came to be the top (again).

The country has a high level of mutual trust, researchers said, meaning its citizens trusted the government was handling the pandemic appropriately.