5 CA Cities Among Top 10 Happiest In U.S.

CALIFORNIA —From the beautiful beaches to the nearly year-round wonderful weather, it's not surprising that a number of cities in California were recently ranked as the happiest places to be in the country.

In fact, a quarter California cities ranked among the top 100 happiest cities in the United States, including five in the top 10, according to WalletHub. Fremont, California, ranked as the happiest city in the country, according to the personal finance website, followed by Plano, Texas, and San Jose, California.

At the other end of the rankings, Detroit, Michigan, ranked as the least happy city in the U.S. The bottom five were rounded out by Charleston, West Virginia, Toledo, Ohio, Huntington, West Virginia, and Cleveland, Ohio.

While the concept of happiness is an abstract one for many, researchers have found a collection of factors to be key ingredients in the pursuit of a smiley demeanor. Mental and physical health, strong social connections, job satisfaction and financial well-being have all been shown to be important attributes in staying happy.

But money can only make you so happy, according to a report from the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Researchers from the organization found that people who make $75,000 a year won't get any higher satisfaction from earning more than that amount.

WalletHub compared 182 of the largest cities in the U.S. across 30 relevant metrics, including depression rate, sports participation rate and job satisfaction.

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

Here are the 10 happiest cities in the U.S. in 2020, according to WalletHub:

1. Fremont, California: 75.32
2. Plano, Texas: 73.23
3. San Jose, California: 73.20
4. Irvine, California: 72.81
5. Madison, Wisconsin: 72.19
6. Sioux Falls, South Dakota: 70.26
7. Huntington Beach, California: 69.90
8. Scottsdale, Arizona: 69.49
9. Santa Rosa, California: 69.33
10. Pearl City, Hawaii: 69.13

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

1. Fremont (1)
2. San Jose (3)
3. Irvine (4)
4. Huntington Beach (7)
5. Santa Rosa (9)
6. San Francisco (14)
7. Santa Clarita (16)
8. Oceanside (17)
9. Glendale (18)
10. Anaheim (19)
11. San Diego (24)
12. Chula Vista (25)
13. Garden Grove (26)
14. Oxnard (37)
15. Oakland (39)
16. Rancho Cucamonga (52)
17. Santa Ana (53)
18. Long Beach (62)
19. Fontana (78)
20. Los Angeles (80)
21. Ontario (81)
22. Riverside (83)
23. Moreno Valley (87)
24. Modesto (93)
25. Sacramento (99)
26. Bakersfield (120)
27. San Bernardino (130)
28. Fresno (140)
29. Stockton (148)

Find the full list of happy cities on WalletHub.