A Midwest city was named one of the happiest cities in the world — and became the only city in the United States to earn the coveted status.
According to the Institute for Quality of Life, which creates the so-called "Happy City Index" each year, Minneapolis, Minnesota, is not just the happiest city in the U.S., but is among the happiest in the world.
The ranking is based on "thousands of indicators" aimed at determining quality of life and "the sense of happiness" for residents," according to the institute, but each city was ultimately evaluated on 24 "areas of activity" within the categories of: citizens, governance, environment, economy and mobility.
Cities were then given gold, silver or bronze status.
Minneapolis was the only U.S. city to rank in the gold grouping, which consisted of 37 total cities. The Midwest location ranked at No. 17.
Get top local stories in San Diego delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC San Diego's News Headlines newsletter.
The top-ranked city in the world was Aarhus, Denmark.
Minneapolis scored particularly high in the citizens and economy categories.
Now, while the Minnesota city was the only one to earn gold status, several other U.S. cities were named in the silver and bronze lists -- including another Midwest location.
U.S. & World
Those included Boston, Baltimore, Washington, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Madison, Pittsburgh, Rochester and Portland.
Madison, Wisconsin, has also been named on a number of other rankings aimed at evaluating happiness.
