Kassel leads the happiness ranking – but where are the others?

Kassel leads the happiness ranking – but where are the others?

The town of Kassel is once again celebrated as Germany's happiest city this year. The “Happiness Atlas” of the South German Class Lottery (SKL) named Kassel first in the ranking of the 40 largest German cities with over 200,000 inhabitants. Kassel achieved an impressive 7.38 points in the life satisfaction survey, which is based on a scale from 0 (not at all satisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied). This number looks particularly good when you consider that the city also took first place last year.

But how can it be that Kassel shines with such high luck numbers while many large cities are lower in the ranking? Krefeld and Düsseldorf follow in second and third place, while larger cities such as Munich, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin fall far behind - taking places 27, 35 and 37 in this survey. Rostock, the city with the worst scores, only achieved 6.36 points, which shows the gap to Kassel of 1.02 points. Mind you, this means the difference between a healthy person and someone with poor health.

Small towns, big luck

A crucial point that Bernd Raffelhüschen from the University of Freiburg highlights is the distribution of happiness in cities. Smaller cities such as Augsburg, Münster and Aachen offer many advantages. They often have a young population, lots of green space, good medical care and a student-oriented environment. Kassel plans to further promote this positive trend. Good family and education policies as well as offers in the area of ​​renewable energies and sustainable mobility should further increase the attitude to life. Mayor Sven Schoeller emphasizes that life is happier in Kassel than in other German cities, and this can also be seen in the survey data.

The current surveys show a clear increase in life satisfaction in Germany. According to the Tagesschau, overall life satisfaction has improved to 7.06 points, which reflects the level of the 2010s. This gives hope that the difficult years of the corona pandemic and inflation have largely been overcome. People living alone, young adults and working mothers in particular can see an increase in their well-being, which may be due to better working conditions and collective bargaining agreements.

Satisfaction with life depends not only on subjective feelings, but also on objective factors. In Kassel, for example, the quality of life in areas such as infrastructure, culture, healthcare and education is sometimes slightly above the average of the 40 large cities. However, smaller cities often have better cards when it comes to actual satisfaction. A positive trend cannot be overlooked here - and so an exciting question remains: What really makes a city happy?

For anyone looking for a place full of satisfaction, Kassel seems to be the right choice. Many are already applauding and see the town as a shining example at a time when quality of life is becoming more important than ever. If you would like to find out more about the city ranking, you can find relevant information on the websites of the South German Class Lottery and Kassel or take a look at the comprehensive analysis at Tagesschau.