What makes a place somewhere good to live? Where might we be happiest if we had the choice of going anywhere? It’s an almost impossible question, as we do not all thrive on the same things, but there are some that are universally agreed to be conducive to cheeriness.
When we tried to work out the happiest places for Guardian readers, easy access to countryside and parks, sea, lakes and rivers were high on the list of ingredients, as studies have shown that getting out and about in nature can help improve your mood.
Being fit and well, and able to see a doctor when you are not, are also helpful, so we looked at the average driving time to GPs, hospitals, pharmacist and dentists. These sets of data, together with information about air quality were contributed to by the Geographic Data Science Lab at the University of Liverpool.
