From being rated the happiest country in the world just a few years ago, Nigeria has not only dropped out of the top 50 but has also been beaten by five other African countries in a new survey of the world’s happiest countries.

The survey by United States-based Jetpac put Nigeria at number 58 in the world and number six in Africa. A statement released today in California by Jetpac to mark the International Day of Happiness, showed South Africa, Angola, Egypt, Ghana and Tunisia ahead of Nigeria on the scale of happiness. Nigeria, however, beat Morocco, Kenya, Tanzania and Mauritius. The survey involved 12 countries, with Brazil at the top and Japan bringing up the rear. Nigeria occupies the 58^th position.

Jetpac said the ranking is based “not by how happy people say they are, but by their actual smiles.” It added: “Finding the Happiest Countries in the World took doing image processing on over 150 million Instagram photos to count and size the smiles on people’s faces from all the cities in the World. From counting the pixels, we were able to come up with a Smile Score for every city in every country.

“Smiles on the faces of millions of people in millions of photos are the most direct measure we have of happiness. Previous attempts to measure happiness have relied on survey questions or indirect measures. Jetpac is identifying smiles on faces and then measuring the shape and size of the smile – a small grin doesn’t score as highly as a broad smile. Smiling for the camera seems to be a cultural norm for a country.”

Below are the happiest countries in Africa, the score of each and position in the world:

24. South Africa 31.5

38. Angola 29.0

43. Egypt 26.7

44. Ghana 26.4

69. Tunisia 22.2

58. Nigeria 24.3

81. Morocco 20.0

86. Kenya 18.8

96. Tanzania 17.0

104. Mauritius 14.7

Below are the Top 10 Happy Countries:

1. Brazil 60.5

2. Nicaragua 59.4

3. Honduras 53.9

4. Colombia 49.8

5. Bolivia 48.1

6. Costa Rica 47.5

7. Venezuela 47.0

8. Philippines 46.0

9. Guatemala 42.0

10. Mexico 40.3

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