Only 1 Illinois City Makes The Happiest Cities In America List

I don't want to give away the lead right off the bat, but I can tell you that Illinois' happiest city is listed in the photo above...but, it's not Rockford.

Personal-finance website WalletHub put their number-crunchers to work trying to determine the happiest cities in the entire country, and I'm sorry to report that Midwestern cities did not fare very well at all, at least among the ranks of the top twenty happiest cities.

Here are a couple of more hints about Illinois' happiest city:

For A State That's Losing Population, California Leads The Way In Happiest Cities

Here's what WalletHub looked at to make their determinations as to the happiest cities in the United States:

WalletHub drew upon the various findings of positive-psychology research in order to determine which among more than 180 of the largest U.S. cities is home to the happiest people in America. We examined each city based on 30 key indicators of happiness, ranging from the depression rate to the income-growth rate to average leisure time spent per day.

Six of the top ten happiest cities, and ten of the top twenty are all in California:

Fremont, California is rated as the happiest city in America, San Francisco is #3, San Jose is #4, Irvine is #5, Huntington Beach is #9, and San Diego is #10.

Here's another hint about which Illinois city is on the list:

Okay, have you figured it out? Fine. This should get you over the top:

No, it's not Elmhurst! It happens to be...

Aurora, Illinois sits in the #21 spot for overall happiest cities, and it's the only Illinois city to make the top 50 (Chicago is #56).

As for our Midwestern neighbors, Madison, Wisconsin has the most impressive placement at #6, and Minneapolis comes in at #12.

Detroit finds itself on the bottom of the list with a ranking of #182.