Armenia ranks as the 53^rd country in the British New Economics Foundation’s Happy Planet Index (HPI) 2012 report.

With this result, the country is well ahead of its regional neighbors, Georgia and Azerbaijan, which rank 56^th and 80^th, respectively.

Turkey places 44^th country, while Russia is the 122^nd.

It is noteworthy that Armenia this year tops such countries as the Netherlands (67), Belgium (107), Denmark (110), Canada (65) and the United States (105).

The top ten countries in the ranking include Costa Rica, Vietnam, Columbia, Belizе, Salvador, Jamaica, Panama, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guatemala.

According to the HPI’s official website, the latest index shows the extent to which 151 countries across the globe produce long, happy and sustainable lives for the people that live in them. The overall index scores rank countries based on their efficiency, how many long and happy lives each produces per unit of environmental output.

Each of the three component measures – life expectancy, experienced well-being and Ecological Footprint – is given a traffic-light score based on thresholds for good (green), middling (amber) and bad (red) performance. These scores are combined to an expanded six-colour traffic light for the overall HPI score, where, to achieve bright green – the best of the six colours, a country would have to perform well on all three individual components.