New bubble graph: Gapminder Agriculture

cow_shadowWhich country has the largest grain production? Who produces the most fruits, vegetables, nuts, coffee beans or other crops? And who brings up the most sheeps, cows, or other livestock?

Now you can see agricultural production in a completely new Gapminder Graph. With data from FAO, we have collected over 700 indicators to show how agricultural production has changed over the last 45 years.

Here are a few examples:

Children per women since 1800 in Gapminder World

The data for “Children per woman (total fertility)” has been updated to cover 195 countries from 1800-2008. It is now possible to see the entire “demographic transition” that most countries have followed: going from many children and short lives, too few children and long lives.

» Click here to see children per woman vs life expectancy in Gapminder World

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High income – rare in tropical land-locked countries

The role of geography for the prospects of development has been hotly debated the last decade. Economists, like Jeffrey Sachs, have suggested that a country that are situated in the tropics or that are landlocked face a much larger challenge in development, for a number of reasons.
Continue reading “High income – rare in tropical land-locked countries”

Democracy indicator added

We have now added an indicator of how countries are governed. This indicator puts countries on a spectrum from democracy to autocracy through expert scoring on a number of criteria. The range of the indicator is from 10 (fully instititutionalized democracy) to -10 (hereditary monarchy). See the example graph here (look at the colour of the bubbles for the democracy score). Data are available all the way from 1800 to 2007.
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Asia best in math

A new international comparison in math achievement has just been released. Here we have plotted the average achievement for children in the 8th grade against Income per person in each country. Here we have the same graph but with the results for 4th graders. As can be seen, the top five achievers are all East Asian countries.

You find the indicators under the heading “Education” -> “Achievement”. A higher score means better achievements in the test. The data is based on an international math test for children in 4th and 8th grade, from the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study).

Where do people eat most sugar and sweeteners?

At request we added a new indicator for consumption of sugar and sweeteners per day and person, i.e. it measures how many grams sugar and sweeteners does each person consume in one day.

In this graph we plotted sugar consumption against income per person.

It is of course tempting to plot this indicator against “bad teeth per child”.

In this graph we have done precisely that. However, the link between the two indicators seems to be relatively weak.

NOTE: the figures for 2004 is based on a very rough extrapolation (i.e. we use the data for 2003) and this was only done to allow a comparison with “bad teeth per child”.

Which country has the best teeth in the world?

We have added a new indicator: “bad teeth per person” (you find it under “health” in the Gapminder World).

Here we have plotted “bad teeth per person” against “income per person”. Is dental problems worst in the richest or the poorest countries? There actually seem to be a tendency for the dental problems to be larger in the middle income countries, while the population in the richest and poorest countries have somewhat better teeth.

“Bad teeth per person” show how many decayed, missing or filled teeth an average 12 year old has in each country. The technical term of the indicator is DFMT for 12-years old and the data is taken from the WHO. We have unfortunatly only data for one year. Note that the data in many cases are actually based on estimates for earlier years.

There are some interesting discussions concerning this indicator over at Chris Blattman’s blog as well as at  the meaningfullness of little things.

Who has the oil, and who uses it?

We have added 24 new data series with data on consumption and production of oil, natural gas, coal and other energy sources.The source of these data is BP’s World Statistical Review 2008.

We think these are fascinating data: they show you who has the oil and who uses it, the remarkable close relationship between energy consumption and income, and many other interesting relationships.

CO2 historical data added and total emissions added

We have now added data on CO2 emissions per capita from fossil fuels going back to 1820 (or close to the start of the industrial use of fossil fuels). We have also added data on total emissions for the same country. A new example graph shows per capita CO2 emissions on the Y axis and total emissions as the size of each bubble. This graph is available here.

Press the “Play” button to see trends over the last 90 years. Among other things, it highlights that while China is close to passing the United States as the largest emitter of CO2, China’s per capita emissions are still much lower than those of the United States.

Large number of new indicators added

We have added over 100 new indicators, covering a wide variety of topics in health, economics, inequality, technology, geography and more.

Note: the indicator set is a “work in progress”, so expect indicators to be added and revised in the near future. Their names might also be revised and more detailed explanations will be added. Please also note that the coverage (in number of countries and time span) is generally smaller for these new indicators.

New “indicator” to display years by colors 1820-2010

A new indicator called “years 1820-2010″ has been added (you find it under “other”).

It is similar to the indicator “year 1950-“, i.e. it simply displays the year, with the only difference that this one covers a longer period. This is more suitable if you want to look at longer periods, e.g. air pollution and income. Use “year 1950-” when you want to look at a shorter time period.

By using this indicator for the color of the bubbles (which you do in the top right corner of the graph) and using “trails” for a selection of countries you can more easily compare the development over time of these countries.

Here you see an example of this (opens in a new window). In the graph you see a comparison of the development of both incomes and sulfur emissions of India, Malaysia and United Kingdom between 1860 and 2000.  The blue and green bubbles show the situation in the second half of the 19th century and the red bubbles show the situation in late 20th century.   

Here is a link to the spreadsheet of the indicator.

New "indicator" to make it possible to display years by colors

A new indicator called “year 1950-” has been added (you find it under “other”).

It simply shows the year, i.e. when we look at data for 1960 the indicator will be 1960 for all countries.

By using this indicator for the color of the bubbles (which you do in the top right corner of the graph) and using “trails” for a selection of countries you can more easily compare the development over time of these countries.

Here you see an example of this (opens in a new window). The development of China, USA, Botswana and South Africa between 1950 and 2005 is compared.  The blue bubbles show the situation in the 50’s, the green bubbles show the situation in the 70’s and so on.

Note: the indicator only starts at 1950 so obervations before 1950 will be without colors.

Here is a link to the spreadsheet of the indicator.

New Indicator: Public & private health expenditure (% of GDP)

On request we now add the new indicator “Public & private health expenditure (% of GDP)”.

It shows how big share of the average person’s income is being spent on health care, whether it is through the tax they pay, the health insurance they have or through out-of pocket expenses.

Here the indicator is compared with Infant Mortality in Gapminder World.

Here is a link to the spreadsheet of the indicator.

Unfortunatly the indicator only covers the years 2000-2004 (with three exceptions), so any tips on where we can find data covering more years are most welcomed.

New indicator: growth in income per person

On request we now add the new indicator “Growth in income per person (% per year)”, defined as the annual growth in Gross Domestic Product per person (percent increase from one year to next). It covers the period 1961-2005.

Note: this indicator is not necessary fully consistent with the “Income per person” indicator since different sources has been used.

Here “Growth in income per person” has been displayed against the level of “Income per person” in Gapminder World.

Here is a link to the spreadsheet of the indicator.