We all know southeast Minnesota is a great place to live, right? No news bulletin there. But, a new survey says Olmsted County is also one of the happiest places around.

Google Street View
Google Street View
loading...

That's right, a new survey from the gang over at SmartAsset.com has compiled a list of the 25 Happiest Counties in America, and, guess what? You know it-- Minnesota's own Olmsted County made the list.

Now, if you're like me, and you're wondering just HOW they went about deciding the happiness level of every county in the country (And, think of how many counties that actually is. I mean, there are 87 counties here in Minnesota alone; Wisconsin has 72, and there must be a similar amount in the other 48 states, which, by my count would be nearly 3,000, so, yeah-- it's a lot!), here's how they did it:

"Thanks to factors like affordable homes, low unemployment rates and high life expectancy, some counties are happier than others. Below we look at these and other factors to rank the happiest places in America. We compared counties across eight factors: unemployment rate, poverty rate, affordability ratio, marriage rate, divorce rate, bankruptcy rate, life expectancy, and physical activity rate," the site said.

And, the results? Yeah, that's right-- Olmsted County came at #24, right there between Norfolk County in Massachusetts and Broomfield County out in Colorado. It's actually pretty impressive considering just HOW many counties they looked at!

And, it's worth noting that Minnesota had the Happiest County In America, too-- that'd be Carver County, which was ranked #1. Plus, Washington County here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes made the list as well.

Listen to Curt St. John from 6 to 10 a.m. on Quick Country 96.5
and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 103.9 The Doc

More From 106.9 KROC-FM