Water Available Per Person Worldwide

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March 22, 2013 has been designated World Water Day by the United Nations. In that regard, we wanted to see how much water is available per person per day across the planet.

The map above, winner of the Urban Water Design Challenge for Interactive Water Footprint Infographic at Harvard University, shows how much water is available for each person in a single day in each country.

Countries with the largest amount of water available per person per day (dark areas) include: the United States (4,382 litters/day), Canada (3,796 litters/day), and Ecuador (,3516 litters/day) in the Americas; Hungary (5,704 litters/day) in Europe; Azerbaijan (5,619 litters/day), Iraq (4,060 litters/day), and Tajikistan (5,033 litters/day) in Asia; Sudan (2,822 litters/day), and Egypt (2,527 litters/day) in Africa.

For the interactive infographic and other interesting visualizations about water, please visit: Circle of Blue: Harvard Students Win Urban Water Design Challenge for Interactive Water Footprint Infographic 

Forest Areas as a Percentage of Land Area Worldwide

March 21, 2013 has been declared the first International Forest Day by the United Nations. In that light, we decided to take a look at one key environmental indicator that measures the percentage of forest area present in different regions of the planet.

The map above, created by the World Bank depicts forest areas as a percentage of land area for each country. Forest area is defined as land, natural or planted, under groves of trees of at least 5 meters (productive or not), excluding tree groves in agricultural production systems.

Countries with the highest forest area as a percentage of land area (dark red areas) include: Guyana, Suriname, and Belize in the Americas; Finland and Sweden in Europe; Bhutan, Laos, Japan, South and North Korea in Asia; Guinea, Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, and Guinea Bissau in Africa; Papua New Guinea in Oceania.

 

Health Insurance Rates by County for the U.S.

This map from The Daily Biz, created using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, shows health insurance rates by county for people under the age of 65 across the United States.

Darker areas represent the counties with higher rates of uninsured Americans, while lighter areas represent the counties with lower rates of uninsured people under age 65.

The higher rates of uninsured Americans can be found concentrated in the Western and Southwestern estates, and in some parts of the Southeast. By contrast, the rate of uninsured Americans is lower in the Northeast and parts of the Southeast and Midwest.

 

How Welcome Are Foreign Visitors in Your Country?

When traveling around the world, tourists do not know which countries will welcome them, and which countries won’t.

A recent report on world tourism by the World Economic Forum fills that void. The report compiled a list of the most and least friendly countries for tourists. Using a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 stands for the unfriendliest countries, and 7 stands for the friendliest nations, the report ranks countries according to the attitude of the population toward foreign visitors.

As seen in the map above, among the unfriendliest nations we find Bolivia, Venezuela, Russia, Kuwait, Latvia, Iran, Pakistan, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Mongolia. Among the friendliest nations we find Iceland, New Zealand, Morocco, Macedonia, Austria, Senegal, Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ireland, and Burkina Faso.

Resource:  World Economic Forum: The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013

 

Food Spending by Country

Food spending by country

The share of household spending devoted to food and drink varies widely by country, as shown in the chart above recently published by The Economist using data from the US Department of Agriculture. The chart shows that Americans spend less than 10% of their income on food and drink, whereas people in Cameroon spend close to 50%. What percentage of your income pays for food and drink?

Cancer Death Rates for Men and Women

Cancer affects both women and men globally. However, cancer death rates are different for each gender, as can be seen in the two maps displayed in this article.

We find the highest cancer death rates for women (126 or more per 100,000 population) in Mongolia, Denmark, Albania, Macedonia, Uganda, and Honduras.

The cancer death rate for men is the highest (150 per 100,000 people) in most parts of the world, compared to women. Countries with high death rates for males include most European countries, Middle Eastern nations, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, China, Japan, South and North Korea, Turkey, South Africa, Argentina, Uruguay, and Cuba. Other countries with high death rates for males (126 or above per 100,000 people) include the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Australia.

We can only speculate about the factor behind this disparity in numbers of cancer death rates for men and women worldwide.

For detailed information, please visit:

 

Number of Doctors per 1,000 People per Country

The map above, created by the World Health Organization (WHO), shows the number of physicians per 1,000 people (for the latest available year) across the globe.

Countries with the largest number of physicians per 1,000 population include: San Marino (47.35), Cuba (6.72), Greece (6.17), Monaco (5.81) and Belarus (5.18).

Countries with the smallest number of doctors per 1,000 people include: Colombia, Nicaragua, Haiti, Liberia, Niger, sierra Leone, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, etc.

Fossil Fuel Subsidies Globally

Fossil fuel subsidies are very common in developing nations. Subsidies cover the difference between the price at which fossil fuels are sold inside the country and their actual price in international markets, creating a huge fiscal burden (an estimated $400 billion annually) for the countries that provide them. Developing nations with fossil fuel subsidies include: Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, China, India, Indonesia, etc.

Developed nations also provide subsidies in the form of tax breaks to the oil industry and other measures (estimated at a cost of $45 to $75 billion per year). Nations in this group include many OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) members.

For the interactive map, visit: National Geographic: The Great Energy Challenge: Fossil Fuel Burden on State Coffers

 

Male Gender Preference Globally

In this day and age, it is still surprising that in most parts of the world, there is still a preference for sons over daughters. It is even more surprising when you are talking about developed nations such as Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea.

Other nations where the preference of sons overs daughters is extremely abnormal include China, India, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Malaysia among others.

Resource: Women Stats: Map – Son Preference and Sex Ratios

 

Country Comparisons

We launched today a new country comparison section which allows you to get high-level side by side comparisons of any two countries. The data behind the comparisons comes from the World Factbook published by the US Central Intelligence Agency. Here are some examples of popular comparisons:

Note that you can compare countries for all the indicators/variables we have, or for subsets grouped by topic. Topics include economy, demographics, government, military, telecommunications, etc.