A new study shows that Southern states are the happiest making coastal states like New York and California being placed at the bottom of a list compiled by researchers.

On self-reported measures researchers ranked the happiest states. Louisiana topped the list, followed by Hawaii, Florida, Tennessee, and Arizona being the top five.

New York was at number 51 and California was placed at number 46.

Researchers used information from a 2005-2008 nationwide life satisfaction survey in which 1.3 million Americans were surveyed and a 2003 study that encompassed objective happiness indicators.

The places where people preferred staying and report happiness were rated for studies and a comparison was done of things like climate, crime rates, air quality and schools.

"We have been asked a lot whether we expected that states like New York and California would do so badly in the happiness ranking," says researcher Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, in a news release.

"People think these states would be apt to live in. The problem is that if too many people think this way then it would result in congestion and house prices make it a non-fulfilling prediction," he added.

Stating that economists have been reluctant to use such a data in past Oswald said, “This is the first objective validation of happiness data.”

Britain's Economic and Social Research Council also supported the research.