The first World Happiness Report was released on Apas a foundational text for the UN High Level Meeting: Well-being and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm, drawing international attention.

On April 2, 2012, this was followed by the first UN High Level Meeting called Wellbeing and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm, which was chaired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley of Bhutan, a nation that adopted gross national happiness instead of gross domestic product as their main development indicator. In July 2011, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 65/309 Happiness: Towards a Holistic Definition of Development inviting member countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use the data to help guide public policy. Associate Editors are Lara Aknin, Shun Wang, and Haifang Huang.

The Editors of the 2020 report are John F. Each annual report is available to the public to download on the World Happiness Report website. The report primarily uses data from the Gallup World Poll. The report is a publication of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a global initiative of the United Nations. As of March 2023, Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world six times in a row.

The World Happiness Report is a publication that contains articles and rankings of national happiness, based on respondent ratings of their own lives, which the report also correlates with various (quality of) life factors. Publication ranking national happiness based on respondent ratings of their lives Worldwide levels of happiness as measured by the World Happiness Report (2023).

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