Can you guess which is the happiest city in Portugal? According to the 2026 Happy City Index, it is neither Lisbon nor Porto, although it is just a stone’s throw from Porto. More specifically, we are referring to Maia, which ranks 69th in a list led by Copenhagen ( the capital of Denmark).
What is the Happy City Index?
The Happy City Index is organized and developed by the Institute for Quality of Life, headquartered in the United Kingdom ( London) and with a presence in France ( Paris). The goal of this comprehensive global study is not to declare a single “best city” in the world.
Instead, the idea is to identify cities that combine good governance, sustainability, resilience, and quality of life. In this context, the cities mentioned in the ranking were evaluated using more than 64 indicators, distributed across six main categories :
- Citizens
- Governance
- Environment
- Economy
- Health
- Sustainability
The study’s figures
According to the Happy City Index 2026, this year’s edition featured a large sample, starting with an initial group of 3,400 cities worldwide and narrowing downto amore in-depth selection of 1,000.
In total, the study includes 251 cities, which were evaluated by 466 researchers, taking into account 150,000 data records that were collected and validated.
The global top 10
After an in-depth analysis, the researchers determined the following top 10 happiest cities in the world:
- Copenhagen (Denmark), with 6,954 points
- Helsinki (Finland), with 6,919 points
- Geneva (Switzerland), with 6,882 points
- Uppsala (Sweden), with 6,846 points
- Tokyo (Japan), with 6,788 points
- Trondheim (Norway), with 6,755 points
- Bern (Switzerland), with 6,746 points
- Malmö (Sweden), with 6,705 points
- Munich (Germany), with 6,691 points
- Aarhus (Denmark), with 6,685 points
Portuguese cities in the ranking
As previously mentioned, Maia was named the happiest city in Portugal, ranking 69th with 6,273 points, ahead of destinations such as Bordeaux (France) in 70th place and Adelaide (Australia) in 71st place.
Although it is the highest-ranked Portuguese city, the truth is that Maia is not the only Portuguese city to appear in the 2026 Happy City Index. In addition to the municipality of Greater Porto, the following appear:
- Matosinhos, 111th place
- Odivelas, 114th place
- Almada, 124th place
- Lisbon, 159th place
- Braga, 166th place
- Gondomar, 199th place
- Funchal, 225th place.
This recognition of the city of Maia reinforces its international standing, in the same year it was named European Volunteering Capital.
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