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Many of us take artificial light for granted. Most of us use it daily: we can read, cook, and do tasks indoors; students can study at night; and our communities and homes are safer when not cloaked in darkness.

It’s not just light that has been transformative, but cheap light. The price of lighting has fallen by more than 99.9% since the 1700s.

Changes in what we use to power lighting have been crucial to the plummeting costs. This chart, based on data from Fouquet and Pearson, shows these changes from 1700 to 2000.

In 1700, the typical British household lit its evenings with candles. In the 18th century, they started using whale oil, and by the 19th century, they saw the rise of burning gas. Kerosene briefly provided a fifth of light around 1900. With each transition, lighting became more efficient, and the costs dropped. But the defining transition has been to electricity. It now provides almost all of the UK’s artificial light.

For hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest, lighting at night is still a luxury, and will remain so until they get access to electricity.

Explore what the cost and distribution of lighting tell us about human development →

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For most of the 2010s, Ecuador had some of the lowest murder rates in Latin America. According to data from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, rates were often three or four times lower than the regional average.

But as you can see in the chart, homicide rates have risen steeply in the last few years. From 2020 to 2023, rates increased more than fivefold. To put this in context: the number of people murdered each year increased from roughly 1,400 to 8,200.

Ecuador went from being one of the safest countries in the region to having one of the highest murder rates, not only in Latin America, but in the world as a whole.

This increase in violence has been linked to Ecuador’s growing role in international drug trafficking and competition between criminal groups. Large outbreaks of prison violence, often involving rival gangs, have also contributed.

Estimates of homicide rates can vary between sources; read our explainer on differences between them →

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Go back to China in the 1960s, and you’ll find that the average person ate very little meat. This isn’t surprising: most of the country lived in extreme poverty and could not afford it. Meat consumption is strongly correlated with income: as countries get richer, they tend to have more diverse, meat-heavy diets.

However, as the chart shows, meat supply per person has increased significantly over the last sixty years. In 1962, annual consumption was just 4 kilograms per person. By 2022, it had increased almost 18-fold to 70 kilograms.

It’s not only the amount of meat consumed that’s changed: people in China also eat a more diverse mix. In the 1960s and 1980s, almost all meat came from pork. Today, pork still dominates, but it is joined by more poultry and beef.

This change in diet matters for various reasons. More diversified diets (which are not only about animal products) tend to be more nutritious than monotonous staple-heavy diets that are common for people living in poverty. But this increase in meat consumption also comes with a large environmental impact and consequences for animal welfare.

Explore how meat consumption has changed in your own country →

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Scientists can make an enormous difference in the world.

Take the researcher Sarah Gilbert, who has dedicated her career to developing vaccines. Over the last two decades, she has contributed to vaccines against the flu, MERS, Nipah virus, and Rift Valley fever. When she heard about the outbreak in China in January 2020, she began working on a vaccine, just in case. By the end of that year, the vaccine against COVID-19 was approved, saving an estimated 6.3 million lives in the following year alone. Without this effort, we would have faced a much darker reality, marked by lockdowns, overwhelmed health systems, and widespread suffering.

This chart lists many such scientists whose work saved many people’s lives. The estimates are taken from the web publication Science Heroes, where you can find profiles of these scientists.

It’s difficult to estimate the exact difference particular innovations have made, and I take all such estimates with a grain of salt. None of these scientists did their work in isolation; their innovations were achieved thanks to collaborative efforts and the earlier work of other researchers.

Our team spends much of its time counting deaths, but it’s equally important to know the number of lives saved — even though it is harder to estimate and involves much larger uncertainty. It’s inspiring to be reminded that creative, enterprising, and tenacious people can enormously contribute to our lives.

Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, who invented synthetic fertilizers, are at the top of this list. My colleague Hannah Ritchie wrote an article about the difference their work has made: How many people does synthetic fertilizer feed? →

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According to official mining output records, Peru mined about 90 tonnes of gold in 2023, far ahead of any other South American country. That puts it within the world’s top 15 producers, just below the 10th place, as shown in the chart.

However, this official figure captures only part of Peru’s gold economy. Customs export data shows a striking discrepancy: about 80 tonnes of unaccounted gold in 2023, according to the Peruvian Institute of Economics. That’s gold whose value appears in export statistics but not mine-output records — and it is almost as large as the official figure based on mine records.

Some of this gap may be due to re-exports, inventories, or recycled gold. But given how big the discrepancy is, Peru’s authorities, researchers, and media see it as a practical indicator of the scale of informal and illegal mining. An article in The Economist, for example, compares Peru with other countries using this approach, and argues that gold has become more profitable than drugs for many gangs in South America.

Illegal gold mining is widely recognized as a major issue in Peru and the region, frequently linked to environmental damage and organized crime. This context matters today: the steep recent increase in gold prices raises incentives around unregulated extraction and trade.

→ Our Minerals Data Explorer has more data on metals, minerals, and mining. This United Nations report provides more information about illegal mining and its environmental effects.

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This chart shows the share of people who say homosexuality cannot be justified across five of the world’s most populous countries.

Together, these countries are home to nearly half of the global population. And in all of them, most people still hold strong views against homosexuality. In Pakistan and Indonesia, it’s over 90%; in China, more than 80%. In India and Russia, these views are widespread, and they’ve increased in recent years.

That’s troubling. It’s hard to feel free, or even safe, when your sexuality is seen as something to condemn. In Western Europe and the US, negative views of homosexuality have dropped over the last 40 years.

Homosexuality is now legal in both China and India, but legal status doesn’t erase stigma. When large parts of society see same-sex attraction as morally wrong, laws alone are not a guarantee to protect people from harassment, exclusion, or violence.

Explore responses to this question in more than a hundred countries →

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We’ve all seen the dramatic images of vast parts of the ocean caked in oil; birds and other wildlife stuck in the thick, dark liquid. These spills are both environmentally damaging and expensive to clean up.

As the chart shows, in the 1970s, over 300,000 tonnes of oil were spilled from oil tankers in most years. By the 1980s and 1990s, this had dropped, but the annual average was still over 100,000 tonnes.

These losses have fallen dramatically since the millennium. Last year, 10,000 tonnes were spilled, less than one-thirtieth of the amount lost in a typical year in the 1970s.

This decline has occurred despite global oil production and trade increasing dramatically.

We’ve just updated our charts on oil spills; explore the latest data →

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Many countries receive some foreign aid, but it typically accounts for just a few percent of their income. But during periods of conflict, crisis, or natural disaster, foreign aid forms a large part of some countries’ economy.

The map shows the countries where aid was more than one-fifth of national income in 2023 (the latest year of data available). This included Yemen, Syria, and the Central African Republic, which experienced continued conflict, and Ukraine, which received humanitarian aid following the Russian invasion.

Since aid is often given during periods of acute fragility and humanitarian crises, the countries on this list change a lot from year to year. If you look at the trend for Haiti, for example, you can see a spike in aid after the devastating earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince in 2010.

During these events, aid often plays a crucial role in providing basic resources and support for countries trying to rebuild.

Explore data on who gives foreign aid, who receives it, and how this has changed over time →

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As countries get richer, the type of work that people do changes a lot.

The chart breaks down the workforce by sector by country income groups. In most low-income countries, a majority of people work in agriculture. People grow their own food, get a surplus to sell to others, or produce commodities that they can export overseas.

In comparison, fewer people work in farming in middle- and high-income countries. People start to move to industrial and service jobs instead.

In rich countries, three-quarters of workers are employed in services, compared to just 3% in agriculture.

There are several drivers of this. Agricultural productivity tends to increase as countries get richer (and they gain access to better seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, and land). This means fewer family members must work on the farm to produce the same — or more — income.

At the same time, many industrial and service jobs pay more, so people are incentivized to move out of farming to higher-paying roles when they become available. This transition has been a key driver of economic growth and poverty reduction for many countries.

Read my article on why improvements in agricultural productivity are important to reduce poverty →

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As conflicts break out across the world, the threat of nuclear war is never far from many people’s minds.

One of the first questions we need to answer to better understand the risks of nuclear weapons is: which countries have them, and in what quantity? The chart shows estimates of national stockpiles in 2025.

The exact number of warheads is secret, so these are some of the best estimates based on publicly available information, historical records, and occasional leaks.

Nine countries are thought to have nuclear weapons today, but over 80% of warheads are held by just two: Russia and the United States.

While the number of countries that possess nuclear weapons has never been higher, the total number of warheads and tests being carried out is lower than they were a few decades ago.

Read our colleague Max Roser’s article on why nuclear war is a key concern of our generation →

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Forty years ago, public views about homosexuality were extremely negative in many rich countries. As the chart shows, back in 1984, one in three Dutch people believed homosexuality was “never or rarely justified”. In Spain and Great Britain, that view was held by the majority. Perhaps most strikingly, three-quarters of Americans thought the same.

Since then, levels of discrimination have plummeted. Today, the share of people in these countries who think that homosexuality is “never or rarely justified” makes up a shrinking minority. That’s good news — everyone should be free to decide for themselves who they are attracted to.

It might sound odd today to ask whether someone else’s sexuality is justified. But that’s how the long-running World Values Survey phrased it when they began decades ago. Keeping the phrasing consistent helps show how attitudes have changed, but the fact that it may sound outdated now is, in itself, a reflection of how much has changed.

Explore responses to this question in more than a hundred countries →

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As someone who studies the transition to low-carbon energy, I am always on the lookout for electric cars in everyday life. I like to see how common they are, and it has been exciting to see their prominence grow on the roads in the UK.

Last year, more than one in five new cars sold globally were electric. But how does this vary worldwide? This share is shown across a selection of countries in the chart (more are available here).

Norway leads the world by a long way, with almost all new cars there being electric. China is another standout, with nearly half of new sales.

At the bottom, you can see that electric cars are still relatively rare in countries like Japan, Brazil, and India.

In most countries, greenhouse gas emissions from transport have either grown or, at best, stagnated in the last decade. Accelerating the transition to electric vehicles will be crucial to pushing emissions downwards.

Note that “electric” here includes fully-electric and plug-in hybrid cars; you can see the contribution of each here.

Explore data on electric car sales and stocks across countries in our latest update →

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For the first time, in 2024, more than half of the electricity produced in the Netherlands came from renewable sources, and almost all of it (45%) from solar and wind.

As the chart shows, this has been a sharp and recent shift. Even as recently as 2018, over 80% of Dutch electricity was generated by fossil fuels.

The Dutch government signed a national climate accord in 2019 that introduced more than 600 measures to accelerate the shift to low-carbon power. These included further stimulation of solar and wind energy, a rising carbon tax, and the closure of a major coal plant. A rapid surge in renewable electricity followed, with solar and wind growing from 14% to 45% of the electricity mix.

This transition was developed through negotiations with over 100 organizations, including businesses, unions, government agencies, and NGOs. This collaborative approach reflects the Dutch tradition of polderen, a consensus-driven model in which major decisions are made through dialogue and compromise rather than unilateral decisions from central governments.

This matters because it shows that fast transitions are possible not only through top-down mandates but also through cooperation and shared commitment. That’s an encouraging lesson as countries worldwide seek to move away from fossil fuels.

See how each source contributes to the Dutch electricity mix →

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Just a century ago, many of today’s independent countries weren’t self-governing at all. They were colonies controlled by European countries from far away.

Modern European colonialism began in the 15th century, when Spain and Portugal established overseas empires. By the early 20th century, it had peaked: the United Kingdom and France dominated, and nearly 100 modern-day countries were under European control, mostly in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

As the chart shows, this changed rapidly after World War II. A wave of decolonization spread across the world, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. Colonies became independent countries, formed their own governments, joined international institutions, and started having their own voice in global decisions.

The decline of colonialism marked one of the biggest political shifts in modern history, from external rule to national sovereignty.

Read more about colonization and state capacity on our dedicated page →

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Economic growth is easy to understand: it means that people have access to goods and services of increasing quantity and quality.

What is hard, however, is to measure economic growth. This chart shows two ways of doing this for US growth over the past 160 years.

The purple lines represent a straightforward approach: each line tracks the share of households with access to one specific good or service. Starting from the top, you see the rising provision of basic infrastructure like running water, flush toilets, and electric power. You can also see the increasing availability of communication technology: radios, TVs, the Internet, and mobile phones. And further down, you see the rise of technologies that reduced work at home: vacuum cleaners, washing machines, dryers, and dishwashers.

This approach is very concrete; it shows practical ways in which the production and consumption of specific goods increased over time. The downside is that it only captures a limited number of particular goods. Millions of goods and services are produced and consumed, and most are not recorded with such precision.

A way to measure how people’s access to the full range of goods and services changes is to measure people’s incomes. This way of measuring growth is shown in the top left panel. The data on average income, here measured by GDP per capita, tells us that the average American was 13 times poorer in 1860 than in 2022 (adjusted for inflation).

These two ways of measuring economic growth have pros and cons: one is concrete but not comprehensive, the other is comprehensive but quite abstract. If we want to understand what growth means for our societies, I find it helpful to combine them both.

If you want to know more about this — and see how the inequality of incomes can be factored in — you can read my article: “What is economic growth? And why is it so important?” →

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When I was born in the 1990s, the average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the United Kingdom were about six times higher than in China, but these trends have converged in my lifetime.

You can see this in the chart: in 2022, China’s per capita emissions matched those in the UK.

Once a country that ran on coal, the UK has closed its last coal plant. This has been the main driver of its emissions decline.

Meanwhile, rapid economic growth, powered mainly by coal, has ramped up emissions in China.

These emission numbers are adjusted for trade. Based on domestic production, China’s per capita emissions are much higher than the UK's. But since China is a net exporter of goods (and emissions) and the UK is a net importer, the gap closes when we adjust for consumption.

These emissions are based on domestic consumption and do not include international aviation or shipping, where Brits are likely to emit more.

There are many ways to compare national contributions to climate change; explore them here →

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Smokers are about 21 times more likely to die from lung cancer than people who never smoked, and they face increased risks from over a dozen other diseases. I know people who died from smoking: you probably do too.

In 2008, the World Health Organization created a set of tobacco control policies with different tiers, the highest of which are considered “best practices” — they are listed on the chart.

The chart also shows the share of the global population living in countries that had enacted these policies as of 2007 and 2024.

What surprised me is how recent most of these policies still are. In 2007, only a tiny share of the global population benefited from these policies. Since then, coverage has increased across all these measures, but most of them still reach less than half of the world's population.

What is the share of taxes on the retail price of a pack of cigarettes? See the data for each country →

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For most of history, almost everyone everywhere was very poor. Hunger was common, half of the children died, and, as the chart shows, average incomes were low across all regions.

The chart also shows how people’s incomes have changed over the last two centuries. The chart highlights a stark divergence: while average incomes in every region have increased, the pace of this growth has varied enormously. Western Europe and the “Western Offshoots” (like the US and Australia) experienced early and sustained economic growth. Meanwhile, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia grew much more slowly.

Two hundred years ago, people in all regions were similarly poor. Today, the average incomes of people in Australia, the US, or Denmark are more than 15 times higher than those in Sub-Saharan Africa.

I wrote an article on how economic growth is possible and why it is important: “What is economic growth?” →

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Norway is leading the way in the transition from petrol to electric cars. Almost every new car sold in Norway is electric. Hardly anyone buys a combustion engine car anymore.

However, data on new car sales doesn’t tell us about the distribution of cars on the road. There is a lag between sales and stocks, because people can hold on to their existing petrol and diesel cars for as much as a decade or more.

But after years of electric cars dominating the market, one-third of cars in use in Norway are now electric. The chart shows this growth.

The share was only 12% five years earlier, which shows that this transition can happen relatively quickly.

As the global leader, Norway’s experiences can help to inform other countries on factors like charging networks, grid management, and the impacts of electric car uptake on emissions and air quality.

See how common electric cars are in other countries across the world →

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The Agricultural Revolution — the transition from hunting and gathering to farming — didn’t end hunger. That’s because more food didn’t mean more per person: it meant more people.

The English cleric Thomas Malthus predicted this would continue forever: food production would always be outpaced by population growth, making lasting progress against hunger impossible.

But at least since the mid-20th century, England has left mass hunger behind. How was this possible? How did English farmers prove Malthus wrong?

The chart shows one central part of the answer. For centuries, cereal yields in England — for staples like wheat and barley — were stuck at about 0.6 tonnes per hectare. That means farmers needed a plot of 100 meters by 100 meters to grow 600 kilograms of cereals per year. Hunger was widespread.

But this changed from the 17th century onward, accelerating a hundred years ago. In a dramatic transformation known as the Second Agricultural Revolution, farmers found ways to grow much more food on the same land.

Today, after four centuries of rising productivity, English farmers are growing about ten times more food on the same land than in the past. This has made it possible to increase food production faster than population growth, breaking England out of the “Malthusian Trap”.

The chart also shows that the world as a whole is changing in the same direction. Global average yields have tripled in the last six decades. Today, yields are already about five times higher than in England in the past. If yields continue to follow this trajectory, it would bring us much closer to the end of global hunger, while also sparing land for nature.

My colleague Hannah Ritchie wrote about how climate change might affect crop yields in the future →