Kassel leads the 2025 happiness ranking: Why the city shines!

Kassel leads the 2025 happiness ranking: Why the city shines!

What good news for the city of Kassel! According to the current survey by the South German Class Lottery, it is the city with the happiest people in Germany. In the “Happiness Atlas” special study, which was carried out between January 2022 and April 2025, Kassel took the top spot among the 40 largest German cities with a life satisfaction score of 7.44 on a scale of 0 to 10. The northern Hesse metropolis was already number one last year and is happy to retain this title. The FAZ reports on the consistently high level of satisfaction and emphasizes that Kassel not only scores points with its residents, but also in many aspects that make life more worth living.

Krefeld follows in the other places in the ranking with 7.39 and Düsseldorf with 7.36. Krefeld and Düsseldorf have improved significantly compared to the previous year and are in second and third place. At the other end of the scale is Rostock, which brings up the rear with 6.08 points, as it did in 2024. While the survey looks at life satisfaction in the larger cities, the values ​​show that smaller cities tend to make people happier.

Kassel as an overperformer

The Happiness Atlas places a particular focus on the comparison between subjective life satisfaction and objectively measurable quality of life factors. Here Kassel comes off as an “overperformer” – a city that does not have the highest objective quality of life, but still makes its residents happy. Ranked 15th in objective quality of life, determined by factors such as infrastructure, education and environmental conditions, Kassel shows that it is often the community that makes the difference. The mirror emphasizes that life satisfaction is more evenly distributed, especially in cities like Kassel and Krefeld.

In a broader perspective, the survey shows that life satisfaction usually decreases with the size of the city. Only Düsseldorf and Hamburg make it into the top ten largest German cities, while Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin lag behind; they find themselves in positions 27, 35 and 37. This phenomenon is also reflected in the average life satisfaction in cities with fewer than 400,000 inhabitants, which is 7.01 points. In addition, the study says that life satisfaction among people in almost all major cities analyzed has increased compared to the previous year.

Social cohesion as the key to happiness

Bernd Raffelhüschen, an economist from the University of Freiburg, emphasizes how important social cohesion is for the happiness of the soul. The fact that neighborly relations are intact in Kassel contributes significantly to the high level of satisfaction. While in large cities such as Frankfurt and Rostock there are large differences between satisfied and dissatisfied residents, Kassel shows a much more harmonious picture.

The survey results also seem surprising at first glance, because cities with high unemployment rates and low incomes, such as Mönchengladbach and Duisburg, also made it into the top ten places. These “outperformers” are characterized by a strong community and a high level of quality of life, which often goes beyond financial indicators. The time explains that the focus is on the subjectively perceived quality of life, which often exceeds the objective indicators of prosperity.

The results clearly show that people's attitude to life in Kassel remains strong and is shaped by social factors, the environment and the sense of community. A positive result for all Kassel residents who have found a piece of quality of life in their city!