Where does the data come from?

Country facts come from the openly licensed mledoze/countries dataset under ODbL 1.0. Development indicators such as GDP and life expectancy come from World Bank Open Data under CC BY 4.0, and each value carries its own reference year. Language shares are Unicode CLDR estimates. Map shapes are Natural Earth. Every visualization names its own source on the page.

What happens when a country has no data for a measure?

It is drawn as no data rather than filled with an estimate or an interpolation. Guessing a value would make the map look complete while quietly inventing the part you cannot see, so the gap is shown instead.

Can I use these maps or figures elsewhere?

The underlying datasets carry their own licences, which are named on each page and must be honored. When quoting a figure, include the reference year where the page states one, because World Bank indicators are published for different years for different countries.

World data visualizations

11 interactive views of the world's countries, languages, borders and geography. Everything reads from openly licensed sources, and where a value is genuinely missing it is drawn as no data rather than filled in with a guess. Each page states its headline finding in text, so you can take the number without running the map.

Compare Two Countries
Every stat, side by side.
World Stats Map
One map, many layers.
Time Zones
Convert any time. See the world's clocks and zones.
True Size
Maps lie about size. Drag a country and see.
Flag Colors
The world's flags, by palette.
Language Family Tree
The world's languages, branch by branch.
Empires Through History
Borders across 4,000 years.
Antipode Explorer
Dig straight down. Where do you come out?
Great-Circle Paths
Why flights look curved on flat maps.
If Everyone Lived Like...
All of humanity, at one country's density.
Radius Reach
Drop a pin. Grow a circle. Count the world.
Sea-Level Slider Data unavailable
Raise the sea and watch coastlines flood. Requires precomputed flood extents from an elevation model; deferred rather than faked (see DATA_GAPS.md).
Where People Live Data unavailable
A population-density dot map. The gridded source rasters were deferred as too heavy this pass (see DATA_GAPS.md).
World Religions Data unavailable
Religious composition per country. Pew/ARDA licensing is unclear for commercial reuse, so no data was shipped (see DATA_GAPS.md).
Top Exports Data unavailable
Each country's biggest export. OEC/Atlas data requires registration and its redistribution terms are unclear, so no data was shipped (see DATA_GAPS.md).
Climate Zones Data unavailable
A Koppen-Geiger climate map. Source rasters were deferred as too heavy this pass (see DATA_GAPS.md).

Where to start

Two of these change how you read every other world map you see afterwards. True Size of Countries lets you drag a country across the latitudes and watch the Mercator projection inflate it, which is why Greenland looks like Africa on a classroom wall despite being about fourteen times smaller. Empires Through History steps through four thousand years of borders and makes the modern map look very temporary.

For language questions, the Language Family Tree shows how the world's languages descend from a small number of roots, and the language reach page puts numbers on how much of humanity each one can actually reach.

Common questions

Where does the data come from?: Country facts come from the openly licensed mledoze/countries dataset under ODbL 1.0. Development indicators such as GDP and life expectancy come from World Bank Open Data under CC BY 4.0, and each value carries its own reference year. Language shares are Unicode CLDR estimates. Map shapes are Natural Earth. Every visualization names its own source on the page.
What happens when a country has no data for a measure?: It is drawn as no data rather than filled with an estimate or an interpolation. Guessing a value would make the map look complete while quietly inventing the part you cannot see, so the gap is shown instead.
Can I use these maps or figures elsewhere?: The underlying datasets carry their own licences, which are named on each page and must be honored. When quoting a figure, include the reference year where the page states one, because World Bank indicators are published for different years for different countries.