What: Annual inflation of different items. “Energy” is an aggregate compiled from “Transport” and “Housing” items, so it does overlap with them.
When: 1997-2021
Where: European Union – from 15 countries in 1996, to 27 countries in 2021.
Source: Eurostat database
Inflation and interest rates were going down … until NOW


What: Annual inflation rate and 3-month interbank rate.
When: Every month from January 1990 till January or February 2022 (latest data available).
Where: All countries available in the OECD database (OECD countries + some other countries) which have data for 2022 (that’s why no China here) except Luxembourg.
Source: OECD
What are the long term gains on cryptocurrencies?


What: The chart shows average daily gain in $ if $1000 were invested at a date on x-axis. Total gain was divided by the number of days between the day of investing and June 13, 2021. Gains were calculated on average 30-day prices.
When: from March 28, 2013, till June 13, 2021
Source: investing.com and coingecko.com
Is the economic gap between new and old EU members closing?
What are the yearly temperature patterns at different latitudes?


In the Northern hemisphere the summer is warmer than the winter (i.e. normal), in the Southern hemisphere the winter is warmer than the summer (i.e. Australian), around the equator there is not much difference during the year.
What: The difference between monthly mean temperature and annual mean temperature.
When: Some weather stations have data since the XVIII century.
Where: All the weather stations in the world binned at each 10th latitude. Only stations with full-year datasets used in calculations.
Source: Global Historical Climatology Network-Monthly (GHCN-M) temperature dataset https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ghcn-monthly
Are there any places where the climate is recently getting colder?


The question arises because we’re having Climate Change and not Global Warming.
Only 6 weather stations in the world have a statistically significant negative temperature trend since 2000.
Most of them are located around the equator, one is in Antarctica.
There are 391 weather stations that have at least 5 full years of data since 2000 and which have a significant trend (p-value is less than 5%).
In 385 of those stations, the temperature is rising.
When: 2000 January – 2020 December.
Where: Weather stations that have at least 5 full years of data during the period in question and have a significant regression coefficient (p-value < 5%).
Source: Global Historical Climatology Network-Monthly (GHCN-M) temperature dataset https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ghcn-monthly
How the world’s economic powers are shifting?


What: share of the total world’s GDP
When: 1990-2019
Where: top 14 world countries by GDP each year
Source: Worldbank database
How big is the economy of the Arabian peninsula?


There are 9 countries in the Arabian peninsula, some of them are considered rich while others suffer from poverty and never ending wars. If the Arabian peninsula were one country it would be the 11th largest economy in the world.
What: GDP in constant 2010 USD
When: 2019
Where: All the countries in the world. “Others” were calculated by subtracting the shown countries from the total world GDP estimated by Worldbank. Countries of the Arabian peninsula are Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen.
Source: Worldbank database
How big is the ASEAN economy?


ASEAN is an economic union of Southeast Asian countries. From 1999 to 2019 it experienced considerable growth becoming the 5th largest economy in the world if we count the EU as one unit as well.
Indonesia is the biggest country in the union, but all of them contribute to growth, most growing their GDP by more than 5% a year during 1999-2019 with the only exception being Brunei.
For comparison: the annual average growth in the EU was 1,6% a year and in China, it was 9,0% during the same period. The current composition of the EU was used for the calculations.
What: GDP in constant 2010 USD
When: 1999-2019
Where: All the countries in the world. “Others” were calculated by subtracting the shown countries from the total world GDP estimated by Worldbank.
Source: Worldbank database
How big is Africa’s economy?


Africa is made up of more than 50 countries, most of them are poor compared to the rest of the world. If Africa were one country it would be the 8th largest economy in the world.
This chart is made without any numbers intentionally, they’d distract from the message. The ranking of the countries in the donut chart is “Algeria first”.
What: GDP in constant 2010 USD
When: 2019
Where: All the countries in the world. “Others” were calculated by subtracting the shown countries from the total world GDP estimated by Worldbank.
Source: Worldbank database
How free are different world regions?
The western world loves freedom a lot, with Northern Europe being at the top, whereas regions with predominantly Muslim populations have many restrictions and end up at the end of the (circular) list with low averages.
What: Freedom indices recalculated to fit the range from 0 to 1, where 1 means the best index and 0 means the worst (in 3 out of 5 cases – it’s North Korea). Simple averages were calculated for the regions.
Index, When, Source:
Democracy Index, 2019, EIU
Human Freedom Index, 2017, The Human Freedom Index 2018: A Global Measurement of Personal, Civil, and Economic Freedom
Economic Freedom Index, 2020, The Heritage Foundation
Moral Freedom Index, 2020, The Foundation for the Advancement of Liberty
Press Freedom Index, 2020, Reporters Without Borders
Where: 172 countries were ranked on at least 3 of these indices.
P.S. Radial representation is to make this chart more entertaining for its creator.
Is freedom consistent between fields?
Different freedom indices measure different fields of freedom – press, economy or general human freedom. Are they consistent within a country?
As we see from the 2nd segment of this chart – no, freedoms are not consistent. Economic freedom index is quite often much higher than indices of other freedoms, especially in those countries at the low end. I did my best to adjust the indices so their ranges are uniform, but their averages are still quite different – most countries love economic freedom, while many of them do not care much about democracy or moral freedom.
What: Freedom indices recalculated to fit the range from 0 to 1, where 1 means the best index and 0 means the worst (in 3 out of 5 cases – it’s North Korea). Country average is a simple average of all 5 indices.
Index, When, Source:
Democracy Index, 2019, EIU
Human Freedom Index, 2017, The Human Freedom Index 2018: A Global Measurement of Personal, Civil, and Economic Freedom
Economic Freedom Index, 2020, The Heritage Foundation
Moral Freedom Index, 2020, The Foundation for the Advancement of Liberty
Press Freedom Index, 2020, Reporters Without Borders
Where: 172 countries were ranked on at least 3 of these indices.
P.S. This chart reminds me a forest of mushrooms.
Is freedom consistent within a country?
I’ve found five freedom indices measuring various fields of freedom. The question is whether all those measures are consistent within countries, or do they vary a lot?
The answer is in the chart below the chart below – more often they’re consistent than not. Exceptions are in some Muslim countries which do not like moral freedom or democracy – those ratings are low, but they want high economic freedom – so this one particular rating is often high.
What: Freedom indices recalculated to fit the range from 0 to 1, where 1 means best index and 0 means the worst (in 3 out of 5 cases – it’s North Korea)
Index, When, Source:
Democracy Index, 2019, EIU
Human Freedom Index, 2017, The Human Freedom Index 2018: A Global Measurement of Personal, Civil, and Economic Freedom
Economic Freedom Index, 2020, The Heritage Foundation
Moral Freedom Index, 2020, The Foundation for the Advancement of Liberty
Press Freedom Index, 2020, Reporters Without Borders
Where: 172 countries were ranked on at least 3 of these indices.
Is the USA the most free and democratic country in the world?


I checked five different indices of freedom and democracy provided by various researchers. My initial idea was to show the top 10 ranking countries of every index. However, the USA does not manage into the top 10 anywhere. So, I checked what countries rank better than the USA on those indices. Apparently its neighbour Canada, The Netherlands – one of the oldest democracies in the world, also New Zealand, Denmark and Switzerland rank better on all five indices. Countries like Estonia, Taiwan and Uruguay rank better on 3. Fund fact – the United Arab Emirates, one obviously not-so-free country ranks better than the USA on Economic Freedom Index.
So, If we talk about FREEDOM we talk about THE NETHERLANDS.
What: Difference in ranking compared to the USA on the following indices.
Index, When, Source:
Democracy Index, 2019, EIU
Human Freedom Index, 2017, The Human Freedom Index 2018: A Global Measurement of Personal, Civil, and Economic Freedom
Economic Freedom Index, 2020, The Heritage Foundation
Moral Freedom Index, 2020, The Foundation for the Advancement of Liberty
Press Freedom Index, 2020, Reporters Without Borders
Where: 172 countries were ranked on at least 3 of these indices.
What are the most dominating cities in their countries?


San Juan metro area accounts for more than 3 quarters of the population of Puerto Rico. Same with the Kuwait City metro area in Kuwait.
What: Population distribution between the largest city, the urban area without the largest city, and the rural population. Metro area is meant by the largest city in most cases.
When: 2019
Where: Top ranking countries except one-city countries (like Singapore) from the whole world. Some countries with a total of 26 million inhabitants were excepted because they do not have needed statistics in the Worldbank database. Many of them are small, possibly one-city countries.
Source: Worldbank for numbers, Wikipedia for names.