Viz of the Day

Just as governments struggle to simultaneously address obesity and hunger, the world’s population continues to grow ... and shrink. The United Nations estimates that between 2015 and 2050 49 countries will experience population declines even as the total world population reaches 9.77 billion. Moreover, in all but two countries the ratio of old population to working-age population will increase by 2050, and an estimated 135 countries will experience fertility rates below replacement rates. While...

Suicide in the US is now considered a major public health issue. In 2016, 45,000 Americans took their own lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a 53 percent increase since just 2000. A recent CDC study on trends in suicide rates by US state revealed that in the period from 1999 to 2016 the suicide rate increased in all but one state, Nevada. Among US states, the suicide rate varied from six deaths per 100,000 population in the District of Columbia to 25 in...

Last year the government of China formally adopted the One Belt One Road Initiative to improve the transport and trading links between China and Eurasian and African countries. A modern day version of the Silk Road network of trade routes between East and West circa 207 BCE, One Belt One Road (aka Belt and Road Initiative or just BRI) will be the largest investment initiative in history. BRI will span more than 68 countries and including an estimated $8 trillion of investment in transportation...

Consumer sentiment among US residents surged in March to its highest value since 2004, according to the University of Michigan. An improving job market, expectations of increased disposable income from tax cuts, and prospects for continued economic growth offset concerns about tariffs and stock market volatility triggered by the US president’s impulsive tweets and policy shifts. Growing confidence should help to stimulate consumer spending, roughly 69 percent of the US economy in the first...

Personal safety, as a basic human need, is encapsulated globally in national legislation and international accords, all with the aim of maintaining public order and safety. While definitions of law and order may vary by country—and with it the tasks assigned to security forces—the source of funding is nearly universally taxpayers. Every taxpayer thereby has the right to know whether these public expenditures are effective. In today’s viz we explore the efficiency of public safety expenditures...

Australia is running a continuous and growing deficit in total oil stocks, defying the International Energy Agency's (IEA) mandate on members to maintain 90-days of coverage and perpetuating the country’s vulnerability to swings in global oil markets. Whether global supply imbalances arise from geopolitical discord, OPEC-sanctioned supply adjustments, or other market balance factors, the fact that Australia maintains no strategic reserve and has less than a 50 day supply of oil bodes poorly for...

Corporate growth strategies typically include some combination of deepening existing market penetration and new product and market development. New market entry through acquisitions, greenfield investment, joint venture or other forms are considered generally to be the most controllable ways to drive business growth. And, many emerging markets, such as Brazil, India, Argentina, with their growing middle-classes are attractive targets for these growth strategies. With the ever-increasing...

Ecuador has the world's highest share of nascent entrepreneurs per capita at about 30 percent of the population. This measure is known as total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA). But, does this mean that Ecuador is more entrepreneurial than the United States, which has a TEA of only 14 percent? The answer depends on how we define “entrepreneur”. One key global economic growth driver is the ability of an entrepreneur to bring a concept to market, adding to national income, providing...

How will you remember 2017? Today we recall the 20 most notable data stories of 2017 from Knoema's Viz of the Day series.

Some countries are famous for the quality of their roads (and maybe also the speeds you may go on them). According to the Global Competitiveness Report, the UAE boasts the best roads. France, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and Switzerland also have very high-quality roads—with a ‘quality of roads' score higher than 6—and yet none make the top 100 countries by land area and thus all fall outside the group of countries with the largest road networks. If large countries with expansive road networks...

Driven by geography, culture and so much more, countries around the world host an amazing diversity of festivals, some to celebrate, some to remember, and some, … just because! Everfest publishes FEST300, a list of the 300 best upcoming festivals. Here are some fun facts pulled from FEST300: Of the 170 festivals coming up 2018, Everfest rated 26 as 5 star, the highest rating, while the majority—111 festivals—received a 4.5, and only one festival—the Maha Shivaratri in Nepal—earned a 3. ...

The 104th Tour de France began July 1 in Düsseldorf, Germany and will end on the famous Champs-Elysees in Paris on July 23 after riders complete 21 stages and 3,540 km. Among the world’s most famous and prestigious cycling events, the Tour de France has been held each July since 1903.* A multi-stage race finishing in France but traversing neighboring countries, the Tour is organized around five stage types: flat, medium and high mountain, individual time, and intermediate sprint. The 2017 Tour...

In 2016, Germany, Thailand, and Hong Kong were the top destinations for international travelers while China and the United States accounted for roughly one-third of total tourism expenditures worldwide, according to the World Tourism Organization. But, as people typically visit specific cities within a country, and not the entire country, it is far more interesting to examine city-level tourism statistics. The Global Destination Cities Index, which includes city-level data on the number of...

The Russian health-care system is one of the least efficient in the world, but how inefficient is it? As low as it gets within the universe measured by the Health-Care Efficiency Index from Bloomberg. This year’s Index scored Russia as the least efficient of the 55 countries covered. Jordan, Colombia, Azerbaijan and Brazil rounded out the bottom five, with the US not far behind, scoring 50th in the ranking. The index evaluates data for countries with populations of 5 million people or more,...

Researchers from the Vienna-based Institute for Comparative Survey Research surveyed 86,000 people from 60 countries worldwide during the period from 2010 to 2014 to gain insight into the relative importance of a select set of values. These values were: family, friends, leisure time, politics, religion, and work. Participants of the World Value Survey (WVS) were asked to define the importance of each value, with ranking options of very important, rather important, not very important and not...

Millenials have overtaken Babyboomers by nearly 4 million to become the largest generation in the United States. With a current population of around 79 million, the Millenial generation is expected to grow to 81 million over the next 20 years because of migration, according to the US Census Bureau's latest estimates. The boundaries that define generations are not universally agreed, and yet these boundaries carry important implications in business and government. The size, financial security,...

Today Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 27,339 retail locations as of the first quarter of 2018, followed distantly by such coffee shop chains as Dunkin Donuts with about 10,000 restaurants, Tim Hortons with 4,300 outlets, and Costa Coffee with nearly 1,700 stores worldwide. Starbucks was founded in 1971 in Seattle, Washington, and incorporated on November 4, 1985 to become the publicly traded Starbucks Corporation. Based on the company's positive, sustained...

In a perfect world, where access to technology and the wealth are equally distributed, the GDP of each country would be proportional to its population. In the real world that relationship exists on average (see the dot charts below) but with significant deviations from the trend. Many developed countries, being relatively less populous than their developing counterparts, have high levels of GDP, while the GDPs of less-developed countries, especially in Africa, are disproportionally...

Depression is a common mental disorder, characterized by sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, feelings of tiredness, and poor concentration. The most spread form of depression is Major Depressive Episode (MDE). MDE can be long-lasting or recurrent, substantially impairing an individual’s ability to function at work or school or cope with daily life. When mild, people can be treated without medicines but when depression is...

For additional information on elections please visit each country's respective electoral commission web site: Nigeria - The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)

The World Bank EdStats All Indicator Query holds around 3,000 internationally comparable indicators that describe education access, progression, completion, literacy, teachers, population, and expenditures. The indicators cover the education cycle from pre-primary to vocational and tertiary education. The query also holds learning outcome data from international and regional learning assessments (e.g. PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS), equity data from household surveys, and projection/attainment data to...

Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans. The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission. The average EVD case fatality rate is around 50%. Case fatality rates have varied from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks. Ebola virus disease (EVD) first appeared in 1976 in 2 simultaneous outbreaks, one in Nzara, Sudan, and the other in Yambuku, Democratic...

Since 2001, The Global Information Technology Report series published by the World Economic Forum in partnership with Cornell University and INSEAD has measured the drivers of the ICT revolution using the Networked Readiness Index. For each of the 143 economies covered, it allows areas of priority to be identified to more fully leverage ICTs for development. Four important messages emerge from the 2015 edition. First, as mentioned above, the ICT revolution holds the potential of transforming...

Global Firepower (GFP) provides a unique analytical display of data concerning today's world military powers. Over 100 world powers are considering in the ranking which allows for a broad spectrum of comparisons to be achieved concerning relative military strengths. The Global Firepower ranking is based strictly on each nations potential conventional war-making capabilities across land, sea and air. The nuclear capability is not taken into account. The final ranking also incorporates values...

Since the 1950s, the BP Statistical Review of World Energy has delivered objective and globally consistent data on world energy markets. The publication has become a widely respected and authoritative publication in the field of energy economics, relied on by media outlets, academia, world governments, and energy companies alike. BP publishes a new edition each June and typically conducts a road show to launch the report in the months preceding the official release. The 2016 edition...

Published by Forbes magazine since 2003, the Forbes Global 2000 is an annual ranking of the world’s top 2000 public companies. Forbes ranks the companies according to four basic metrics: profit, sales, assets, and market value. The world's 2000 biggest public companies account for $169 trillion in total assets, $35 trillion in revenues, $2 trillion in profits, and $48 trillion in market value, according to the 2017 list.The world's largest company by market value is still Apple. The technology...

National and sub-national time-series data on Ebola cases and deaths in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal and Mali is the most comprehensive dataset on Ebola situation available to public. The data compiled manually by The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in West & Central Africa from a number of published reports (WHO situation reports and the data from the national Ministries of Health) and updated on daily basis. In this interactive dashboard, you can...

Next year, the US Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund (OASI) for the first time since early 1980s will have a deficit of 13 billion dollars. According to the projections of the US Whitehouse Office of Management and Budget, by 2020 the deficit of the largest US retirement fund will deepen to $123 bln - the level never seen in history. Despite the expected surpluses in others social and Medicare funds, the US federal social security system as a whole will become insolvent in the next 5...

Yesterday US President Trump criticized the US Federal Reserve Board for increasing interest rates in June, the fifth increase since he took office in January 2017. On June 13, the Fed increased the federal funds target rate to 1.75-2% and the primary credit rate to 2.5%. Trump argues that the interest rate hikes slow economic growth. The country's historically low unemployment rate and highest inflation level since 2012, however, support the Fed's move to increase rates. Two more rate hikes...

The Democracy Index measures the state of democracy in 167 countries around the world. The index is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. In addition to a numeric score and a ranking, the index categorizes countries as one of four regime types: full democracies (8-9 overall index score), flawed democracies (6-7 overall score), hybrid regimes (4-6...

In general, there are improvements in Ebola case finding, burial practices and community engagement. Nevertheless, the decline in case incidence has stopped. The increase in number of cases in Guinea and widespread transmission of Ebola in Sierra Leone highlight a significant problem, which should be solved in order to lower case incidence to zero. The first week of February 2015 ended with 144 new cases. Guinea reported a sharp increase in case incidence: there were 65 new confirmed cases...

The Global Youth Wellbeing Index collects youth-related data to estimate the state of young people’s wellbeing throughout the world. The Index is designed to elevate youth needs and opportunities along with young people’s participation on national and global issues. It also provides public and private sector decision-makers with a clear vision of today’s youth needs. The Index takes into account 30 countries with both high and low income from five regions, which represent nearly 70% of the...

Today, Jan 28 US Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC) will hold a regular meeting and shall formulate its vision of US monetary policy for the near future. Due to fallen commodities prices and changes in monetary policy in Europe, financial markets expect the US Fed can also change the rhetoric and move the previously expected rate hikes and policy tightening further in the future. Let's try to take a deeper look at main indicators US Fed uses for setting policy guidelines according...

2014 was the hottest year on Earth since the 1880, at least for Northern Hemisphere, and second one by annual average temperature for the Southern (the hottest was 1998). Some people say where is no global warming, but data shows the overall warming trend quite clear. See by yourself with Knoema visual gadgets and data on temperature anomalies relative to the XX century average from NOAA National Climatic Data Center. Select desired month or annual data in the list at the top-right of the...

The oil price has fallen by more than 30% since Summer 2014. This affected everyone from producers to consumers. The visualization represents Oil Price Dynamics, Breakeven Oil Price which shows oil prices needed to meet general government expenditure and Marginal Cost of Oil Production which shows the change in total cost of producing one additional barrel of oil.World oil price at $55-$60 / barrel is less than the cost of Russian Arctic oil production, Europe and Brazil biofuels production,...

The calculation of the Ocean Health Index for 2014 represents the first year that the Ocean Health Index has calculated a score for the entire global ocean. This year, Antarctica and the Southern Ocean along with the High Seas or Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) (15 regions as defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization) were also assessed. 1) The highest scoring goals and subgoals were Habitats (91), Biodiversity 83 and Economies & Livelihoods (82). 2) The lowest...

The Conference will comprise sessions of: the Conference of the Parties (COP 23); the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 13); the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 1.2); the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 47); the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 47); the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA). The secretariat, as host of...

The Global Innovation Index (GII) recognizes the key role of innovation as a driver of economic growth and prosperity and acknowledges the need for a broad horizontal vision of innovation that is applicable to both developed and emerging economies, with the inclusion of indicators that go beyond the traditional measures of innovation (such as the level of research and development in a given country). The GII has evolved into a valuable benchmarking tool to facilitate public-private dialogue,...

In this dashboard, we integrate the most recent medium and long-term forecasts of key economic indicators for G20 countries from major international organizations, namely, the World Bank, IMF, United Nations, OECD, European Commission and the Economist Intelligence Unit. The data presented cover projections of real GDP growth, characterizing each country's output of final goods and services; consumer price inflation, as a measure of price level movements; unemployment rate, or percent of those...

According to Walk Free Foundation, there are an estimated 45.8 million people enslaved around the world. The countries with the highest numbers of enslaved people are India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan. Taken together, these countries account for 58% of enslaved people around the world. Modern slavery takes many forms and is known by many names: slavery, forced labor or human trafficking. Whatever term is used, the significant characteristic of all forms of modern slavery is...

The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) is a global study on the basis of which ranking of countries in terms of economic competitiveness in the world is formed. The World Economic Forum defines competitiveness as the ability of the country and its institutions to ensure stable economic growth, which would be stable in the medium term. GCI is determined by numerous and very diverse factors which were divided into three subindexes: Basic requirements, Efficiency enhancers, Innovation and...

Since India was under British rule, the rupee was pegged to the British pound. From 1927 to 1966, 13 rupees = 1 pound. The peg was maintained until 1966 when the rupee was devalued and pegged to the U.S. dollar at a rate of 7.5 rupees = 1 dollar. This peg lasted until the U.S. dollar was devalued in 1971.

All world countries have an access to the same petroleum prices as on international markets. However, countries' governments decide to impose different taxes according to their economic policies. As a result, the retail prices of gasoline differ considerably across countries. Explore latest global petrol prices on the charts and a map below and see how low gasoline can cost in producing countries in South America and the Middle East in contrast with the other world. In some cases, like in...

HUMAN DEVELOPEMENT INDEX (HDI) - is a composite index which includes health, education, income, livelihood security and other indicators. In other words, HDI is an indicator showig how successfull are achievenemts in three main fields of human development: healthy life, knowledge and decent standard of living. The chief aim of HDI is to provide nations with comprehensive measure of environment they provide for their people in terms of opportunites for personal fulfilment. The higher the HDI the...

In 1798, British economist Thomas Malthus created a theory - published in Essay on the Principle of Population - in accordance to which uncontrolled world population growth will inevitably lead to hunger. Malthus' primary assumption was that population grows geometrically while food production grows arithmetically. The most adequate solutions to the inevitable hunger, according to Malthus, include wars, natural disasters, and diseases. As we can see from official statistics, Malthus' fear was...

Food is a basic human need. And we tried to estimate how much do people pay for food in different countries. It appeared that food availability significantly varies across countries. In general, price of 1000 Kcal goes up inline with per capita income. For example, in Greece, Belarus, Croatia, Japan and Macedonia people pay $2.8 (based on PPP) for 1000 Kcal. At the same time in Nigeria, Uzbekistan, China India and Kenya the price of 1000 kcal is less then $0.7. It is interesting, that the U.S....

Brent crude oil prices will average $63.4 per barrel in 2018 and decrease to $62.7 per barrel in 2019, according to the most recent forecast from the US Energy Information Administration's monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook (EIA). This reflects an upward revision of $2.5/barrel to the EIA forecast for 2018 compared to last month's Outlook. The OECD Economic Outlook as of May 2018 was less bullish, pegging the real price of a barrel of Brent oil— i.e. price adjusted for inflation—at $69.4/barrel...

According to the latest BP Statistical Review of World Energy, total global reserves, by fossil fuel, are now: Coal - 1,139 billion tonnes Natural Gas - 187 trillion cubic meters Crude Oil - 1,707 billion barrels While these volumes may seem large at a glance, at today's level of extraction and production rates, BP's estimated proved reserves*, by fossil fuel, would be exhausted as follows: Coal - year 2169 Natural Gas - year 2068 Crude Oil - year 2066 BP dutifully acknowledges the...