What is the happiest city in Germany?

The newest annual “Happiness Atlas” study from the Süddeutsche Klassenlotterie (SKL) has revealed which German city has the happiest population. And it’s not in the hotspots you might expect.

Kassel is the happiest German city

In Kassel, more residents are smiling ear to ear than in any other city in Germany. According to SKL’s latest Happiness Atlas (Glücksatlas), which surveyed 23.468 people between 2022 and 2025, the small city in Hesse is the happiest in the country.

Asked to rank their life satisfaction from “not at all satisfied” (0 points) to “completely satisfied” (10 points), residents in Kassel gave an average of 7,44 points. SKL noted that the highest-ranking cities were “family-friendly, accessible, safe and green”. 

“Kassel fulfils all of these requirements,” the SKL wrote, “The university city has a young population, high-quality healthcare services and a multitude of green spaces and places for relaxing”.

While Kassel only performed slightly better than the city in second place, Krefeld with 7,49 points, a whopping 56 percent of respondents in Kassel said that they were “highly satisfied” with their quality of life. Just 3 percent said they were highly dissatisfied.

“When many respondents are generally satisfied, but many are also very dissatisfied, it has a negative effect on the city’s ranking,” explained Bernd Raffelhüschen from the University of Freiburg, who has worked on the study since 2022. Over the years, SKL has found that the greater the social and economic equality in a city, the happier its residents are.

People aren’t so happy in large German cities

The top five happiest cities in Germany were rounded out by Krefeld (7,39 points), Düsseldorf (7,36 points), Augsburg (7,33 points) and Aachen (7,33 points). The only eastern German city to make it into the top 10, Erfurt (7,27 points), came in sixth place.

Generally, the cities which performed best were those with a high proportion of young people and where the population was slightly wealthier than the national average. However, cities with high unemployment and low average incomes also performed well. This includes Krefeld, Erfurt, Mönchengladbach and Duisburg.

Of the German cities with over 500.000 residents, only two made it into the top 10, Düsseldorf and Hamburg (in ninth place with 7,21 points). Munich only appeared in 27th place (6,84 points) and Berlin in 37th place of 40 (with 6,62 points).