So Cal cities among the 10 happiest in the country

The Saddleback Mountains and Lake Mission Viejo (Wikimedia)

Mission Viejo, Lake Forest, San Clemente and Simi Valley are among the top 10 happiest cities in the United States, according to a University of Vermont study.

University researchers analyzed more than 10 million “geo-tagged” Twitter messages from 373 urban areas.

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The researchers scored more than 80 million words in the tweets for levels of happiness.

The researchers said the results “show how social media may potentially be used to estimate real-time levels and changes in population-level measures such as obesity rates.”

Napa was ranked the happiest city in the country.

Mission Viejo, Lake Forest and San Clemente were ranked fourth on the list, and Simi Valley was ranked fifth happiest.

Thousand Oaks came in at 19th on the list, San Diego was ranked 40th happiest and Los Angeles, Long Beach and Anaheim — home to the so-called “happiest place on earth,” aka Disneyland — came in at 79th on the list. Santa Clarita was ranked 96th.