Kingstonians have bigger smiles and smile more often than all other Canadian cities, according to Jetpac City Guides.
Jetpac processed images posted to photo social messaging app Instagram to determine the happiest city in Canada. Millions of faces in over 100 million photos were analyzed.
First they counted smiles, then they judged the size of the smile based on how many pixels it occupies, assuming that bigger smiles mean happier people. Smiles were then given a score from 0 (no smile) to 100.
The top three happiest Canadian cities were Kingston, scoring 40.2; Regina, scoring 36.2; and Quebec City, which scored 34.5. After Kingston, the next Ontario city to rank was London in sixth place.
The nation’s capital placed 18th, but Toronto wasn’t far behind Ottawa, coming in 23rd. In other Jetpac studies, St Louis, Missouri was found to be the happiest city in the United States, while Belfast was the happiest city in the United Kingdom.
The Jetpac app is available through the Apple App Store and there are links on their website jetpac.com to download the app as well. It rates the popularity of over six million venues around the world, and determines what type of crowd it has by counting things in the picture like blue sky, lipstick, moustaches, coffee, and of course smiles.
Blue sky shows that it would be of interest to “outdoor types”, while venues who have a lot of pictures with moustaches in them would be considered a place hipsters would enjoy. All of this is done with public photos on Instagram.
Read their full report here or learn more about Jetpac City Guide at their website.
FUN FACT: Kingston, the happiest city in Canada, is home to Queen’s University. The happiest city in the U.K. is Belfast, Ireland… which is also home to a Queen’s University.
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Photo: Worldizen on Flickr (cc)
