4 CA Cities Among Top 10 Happiest In U.S.: Report

CALIFORNIA — California is home to some of the happiest cities in the country, according to a new study from WalletHub.

The personal finance website this week published a report that ranked the happiest cities in America, and 25 cities in the Golden State ranked among the top 100. Four California cities made the top 10 and one of them landed at the top of the list.

Fremont in the San Francisco Bay Area ranked as the happiest city in the country, followed by Overland Park, Kansas, and San Jose in Silicon Valley.

Detroit, Michigan, landed at the bottom of the list.

"Fremont is the happiest city in America, and one contributing factor is that the city has the highest share of households with an income above $75,000, at nearly 80 percent," according to the report.

Money, however, can only bring so much happiness. Although the U.S. is one of the richest countries, it ranks only 15th on the World Happiness Report.

"People in Fremont also have a high rate of life satisfaction, a low depression rate, and a long lifespan on average," the report found. "Another contributing factor to Fremont's happiness is the fact that it has the lowest separation and divorce rate in the country, at only 8.9 percent. It also has the lowest share of adults who report having 14 or more mentally unhealthy days in the past month, so people in the city seem to be taking care of themselves psychologically."

WalletHub compared 182 of the largest cities in America across 29 key indicators of happiness, ranging from depression and suicide rates to income-growth rate and job satisfaction.

Each relevant metric was listed with its corresponding weight. The cities were then scored on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the happiest city possible.

These are the 10 happiest cities in the U.S. in 2024, according to WalletHub:

1. Fremont, California: 74.16
2. Overland Park, Kansas: 69.78
3. San Jose, California: 69.54
4. Madison, Wisconsin: 68.99
5. Irvine, California: 68.22
6. Honolulu, Hawaii: 68.03
7. San Francisco, California: 67.01
8. Pearl City, Hawaii: 66.90
9. Columbia, Maryland: 65.77
10. Scottsdale, Arizona: 65.26

These are the cities in California that made the rankings. National rankings are in parenthesis:

1. Fremont (1)
2. San Jose (3)
3. Irvine (5)
4. San Francisco (7)
5. Huntington Beach (12)
6. Garden Grove (14)
7. San Diego (15)
8. Glendale (24)
9. Anaheim (25)
10. Oakland (26)
11. Chula Vista (27)
12. Santa Rosa (29)
13. Santa Clarita (30)
14. Oxnard (32)
15. Oceanside (34)
16. Santa Ana (43)
17. Rancho Cucamonga (53)
18. Long Beach (61)
19. Sacramento (63)
20. Los Angeles (64)
21. Riverside (68)
22. Moreno Valley (69)
23. Fontana (78)
24. Ontario (81)
25. Modesto (91)
26. Stockton (111)
27. Fresno (112)
28. Bakersfield (123)
29. San Bernardino (127)

See the full list of the happiest cities on WalletHub.