TALLINN — Estonia has been crowned as the best place to live in the Baltics after it came in fortieth place on the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI).

Lithuania came in at 46th place and Latvia in 48th place in the HDI, which places Norway as the best place is the world to live.

All three Baltic states came in the High Human Development category.

Estonia enjoyed third place in literacy in the world, just behind Georgia and Cuba with 99.8 percent, but it’s composite score was pulled down by its average life expectancy, set at seventy-first. Estonian men are among the earliest to die in Europe.

Latvia and Lithuania also scored well in literacy ratings coming in fourth and seventh respectively.

The study, which was released today by the U.N. uses data from 2007 to calculate its findings, when the three countries were in their “Baltic Tiger” boom years.

The HDI provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development — living a long and healthy life, measured by life expectancy; being educated, measured by adult literacy and gross enrolment in education and having a decent standard of living, measured by purchasing power parity and income.

“The index is not in any sense a comprehensive measure of human development. It does not, for example, include important indicators such as gender or income inequality nor more difficult to measure concepts like respect for human rights and political freedoms. What it does provide is a broadened prism for viewing human progress and the complex relationship between income and well-being,” the study says.