Happy Nation is the debut album of Ace of Base, a pop music group based in Sweden. It was released in early 1993 in Europe, Africa and Latin America on Festival Records. The album is the third highest-selling debut album by a group after Guns N' Roses and Linkin Park. It reached the number one position in at least 14 countries, and it has sold somewhere in the region of 21 million copies worldwide.

A second release in Europe, Happy Nation U.S. Version, came on September 25, 1993, to coincide with the album's release in North America under the title name, The Sign. The Sign was released in North America on November 23, 1993 with four brand new tracks.

Several songs on the album, including "The Sign", "All That She Wants" and "Don't Turn Around", were No. 1 singles in the United States and all over Europe and North Africa.

The Sign is listed among the Top 100 Bestselling Albums of All Time by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Happy Nation was re-released in Europe only, as Happy Nation (US Version) on September 25, 1993, to coincide with the American version of the album titled The Sign released in the Western Hemisphere on November 23 of that same year. Three new tracks were added to the American version, "Don't Turn Around", "The Sign", "Living in Danger", while Happy Nation (US Version) contained four new songs, "Don't Turn Around", "The Sign", "Living in Danger", "Hear Me Calling", a bonus remix for the track "Happy Nation", and "Fashion Party", which was included on the original release of Happy Nation. The re-release climbed to number one in the UK Albums Chart, beating the number 21 peak of the original release. Happy Nation U.S. Version has almost the same cover as The Sign.

A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government (for example the inhabitants of a sovereign state) irrespective of their ethnic make-up. In international relations, nation can refer to a country or sovereign state. The word nation can more specifically refer to people of North American Indians, such as the Cherokee Nation that prefer this term over the contested term tribe.

According to Joseph Stalin writing in 1913 in Marxism and the National Question: "a nation is not a racial or tribal, but a historically constituted community of people;" "a nation is not a casual or ephemeral conglomeration, but a stable community of people;" "a common language is one of the characteristic features of a nation;" "a nation is formed only as a result of lengthy and systematic intercourse, as a result of people living together generation after generation;" "a common territory is one of the characteristic features of a nation;" "a common economic life, economic cohesion, is one of the characteristic features of a nation;" "a common psychological make-up, which manifests itself in a common culture, is one of the characteristic features of a nation;" "A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture." According to Stalin, this would exclude Jews as they have no common territory.