Fewer people work in farming in Asia’s largest countries

Another fun game that sources data from Our World in Data!

Population cartograms show us where the world’s people are.

Honest elections matter to people everywhere

Hannah Ritchie's new book is out now! It’s available in the UK — and readers in most of Europe can also have it delivered. Stay tuned for its release in other regions! The US version will be available in March 2026. Order here: www.penguin.co.uk/books/462676...

Californians now travel millions of miles each month in driverless taxis

A fun chart game that primarily sources its data from Our World in Data!

China's use of fertilizers peaked a decade ago

Check out the new article by our own @hannahritchie.bsky.social and collaborators at the @oxmartinschool.bsky.social— "Earth has now passed peak farmland. What's next?"

The latest World Bank data counts 125 million more people as living in extreme poverty — but the world has not gotten poorer.

📚 The new school year is starting in many places. If you’re a teacher, student, or parent, here are a few ways Our World in Data might be useful to you right now 🧵 Our work is used in classrooms around the world — from top universities to local schools.

Technology can change the world in ways that are unimaginable until they happen. Switching on an electric light would have been unimaginable for our medieval ancestors. In their childhood, our grandparents would have struggled to imagine a world connected by smartphones and the Internet.

📚 The new school year is starting in many places. If you’re a teacher, student, or parent, here are a few ways Our World in Data might be useful to you right now 🧵 Our work is used in classrooms around the world — from top universities to local schools.

Global maternal mortality rates have fallen by almost 60% since 1985

✍️ New article: "How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads" Decades ago, Britain’s roads were much more dangerous. Cars had no seatbelts, airbags, mirrors, or flashing indicators. Traffic signs and signals were rare, and speed limits and other rules were rarely enforced.

Our own @hannahritchie.bsky.social has a new book about tackling climate change coming out on September 18th! Called “Clearing the Air”, it covers everything from renewable energy and nuclear power to electric vehicles, heat pumps, minerals, carbon capture, and geoengineering.

In many countries, more than half of children and pregnant women are anemic

India, China, Europe, and the United States are on very different population paths

Spain is having its largest wildfire year in well over a decade

Methane is a greenhouse gas that is much more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) but has a shorter lifetime in the atmosphere. How we treat the climate impacts of methane matters a lot for the carbon footprint of foods. But even if we exclude methane, meat and dairy products still emit the most.

What are the dominant drivers of tree cover loss? How does this compare in different regions and countries, and how is it changing year to year? 📊 Data update: We've just updated our charts with the latest data from Global Forest Watch. This update was led by @spoonerf.bsky.social on our team.

✍️ New article: “Bans on highly toxic pesticides could be a simple way to save lives from suicide” Pesticide poisoning is a common method of suicide in many low- to middle-income countries. Substituting highly toxic pesticides for less fatal ones can save lives.

Solar overtakes gas to become Hungary's second-largest electricity source

From candles to electrons: changing lighting sources in the United Kingdom

To track progress towards ending extreme poverty by 2030, the United Nations relies on the World Bank to estimate the share of people living below a certain threshold, called the International Poverty Line (IPL).

Homicide rates in Ecuador have increased steeply in the last few years

How much income would it take from the richest 10% of people in the world to match that of the poorest 10%? As the chart shows, it takes less than 2 cents out of every dollar. That's less than *one-fiftieth* of their income, or one week of income in a year.

Over the last six decades, China has rapidly increased and diversified its meat consumption

Counting lives saved is difficult, but it can show us the great difference some people have made— Scientists can make an enormous difference in the world.

Gold export data suggests that Peru, one of the world’s largest producers, mines nearly as much informally as it does formally— According to official mining output records, Peru mined about 90 tonnes of gold in 2023, far ahead of any other South American country.

Shortly after the end of the last great ice age — 10,000 years ago — 57% of the world’s habitable land was covered by forest. In the millennia since then, a growing demand for agricultural land means we’ve lost one-third of global forests — an area twice the size of the United States.

What types of cancers cause the most deaths in each country? How does this compare between women and men? Our senior data scientist, Fiona Spooner, just updated these maps and many other charts on our site, with the latest data from the WHO's World Mortality Database.

Hostility toward homosexuality remains common in many of the world’s largest countries— 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.

Vaccines are one of the most powerful tools in public health. They have saved hundreds of millions of lives by preventing deadly diseases like measles, polio, and smallpox. Before vaccines, these infections were common; surviving them often meant facing severe complications or lifelong disability.

Oil spills from tankers have fallen to less than one-thirtieth of the levels seen in the 1970s

📊 Data update: We've just updated to the 2025 release of the WHO Mortality Database. The release features data on causes of death, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, homicide, suicide, and many more. It has data through 2023 for many indicators, and 2022 for others.

📊 Data update: We’ve just updated to the 2025 release of the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy. The release features data on total energy as well as broken down by different sources, such as coal & other fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewables.

Foreign aid can be a large share of a country’s income during times of conflict or humanitarian crisis

To grow food you need two things: some land and some of your time. Land and labor are two of agriculture’s primary inputs. To build a food system that works for people and the planet, humanity needs to achieve high productivity in both of them.

Our own @hannahritchie.bsky.social has a new book about tackling climate change coming out next month! Called “Clearing the Air”, it covers everything from renewable energy and nuclear power to electric vehicles, heat pumps, minerals, carbon capture, and geoengineering.

✍️ New article: “$3 a day: A new poverty line has shifted the World Bank’s data on extreme poverty. What changed, and why?” 🧵

In low-income countries, most people work in farming; in richer countries, they work in services

Which countries have nuclear weapons, and how many?

Many people today believe that everyone who needs healthcare should be able to get it. In fact, in many countries, access to healthcare is enshrined as a constitutional right. But societal investment in healthcare is a relatively recent phenomenon...

Homophobic attitudes have fallen in Western Europe and the United States

✍️ New article: Death rates from cardiovascular disease have fallen dramatically — what were the breakthroughs behind this? (link in 🧵 )

Our own @hannahritchie.bsky.social has a new book about tackling climate change coming out next month! Called “Clearing the Air”, it covers everything from renewable energy and nuclear power to electric vehicles, heat pumps, minerals, carbon capture, and geoengineering.

What share of new cars in your country are electric?

When discussing data on income inequality, it's important to be clear about what’s being shown. Two measures are often used: income *before* people have paid taxes and received benefits from the government, and income *after* government redistribution via taxes and benefits. 🧵

Renewables have taken the lead in Dutch electricity production