Gdoc/Admin

Popular pages

Research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems.

13,228 charts across 120 topicsAll free: open access and open source

Our Mission

What do we need to know to make the world a better place?

To make progress against the pressing problems the world faces, we need to be informed by the best research and data.

Our World in Data makes this knowledge accessible and understandable, to empower those working to build a better world.

Read about our mission

We are a non-profit — all our work is free to use and open source. Consider supporting us if you find our work valuable.

Donate to support us
As seen on
Logos of the publications that have used our content. From left to right: Science, Nature, PNAS, BBC, Financial Times, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post

Daily Data Insights

Bite-sized insights on how the world is changing, published every weekday.

See all Daily Data Insights
Line chart showing the change in sulphur dioxide emissions in China from 1900 to 2022. Emissions have declined rapidly since around 2006, dropping by more than two-thirds.

China has reduced sulphur dioxide emissions by more than two-thirds in the last 15 years

China has dramatically reduced local air pollution levels — particularly in its biggest cities — in the last decade.

One rapidly declining pollutant is sulphur dioxide (SO2), which generates smog and can cause acid rain. Its primary source is coal burning.

In the chart, you can see the annual emissions of SO2 in China. They rose steeply during the 1980s and 1990s. But they peaked in the mid-2000s, and over the last 15 years, they have fallen by more than two-thirds.

Putting emissions limits on coal plants and introducing desulphurization technologies that remove SO2 from smokestacks were critical drivers of this decline.

These are modeled estimates from the Community Emissions Data System (CEDS).

See whether air pollution has increased or decreased in your country →

Continue reading
A horizontal bar chart titled "Foreign aid given per capita in 2023" shows net official development assistance (ODA) divided by population for various countries. The chart depicts the following countries and their corresponding aid amounts in U.S. dollars:

- Norway: $1,160 (the longest bar, highlighted in green)
- Sweden: $515
- Netherlands: $370
- UK: $255
- France: $225
- US: $190
- Japan: $155
- Australia: $122
- Spain: $69
- Israel: $41 

A note indicates that Norway is the only country giving over $1,000 per capita in foreign aid. The data source is from the OECD, dated 2024, and the image has a copyright notice stating "CC BY."

Norway gives more foreign aid per capita than any other OECD country

In 2023, Norwegians gave $1,160 in foreign aid — more than twice the amount contributed by people in other large Western countries.

By comparison, people in countries like the United States and Japan gave much less, at $190 and $155 per person, respectively.

One factor behind Norway’s substantial foreign aid is its sovereign wealth fund, built from oil revenues. The fund is valued at around $1.8 trillion — about the size of the Australian economy — and provides financial resources that few nations can match.

Still, its generosity stands out: Norway also leads in foreign aid as a share of national income.

Explore foreign aid given per capita for more countries

Continue reading
A chart with two panels that displays trends in statin usage and cholesterol levels among American adults from 1999 to August 2023. The upper panel shows the age-standardized share of eligible adults using statins, showing a general rise between 1999 and 2018. The lower panel shows a decline in unhealthy cholesterol levels, depicted by the age-standardized share of adults who have high total cholesterol. The data is sourced from the National Center for Health Statistics, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2024). The chart is published by Our World in Data.

Cholesterol levels have declined among American adults in recent decades

High levels of cholesterol are a risk factor for atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases, which can lead to heart attacks and strokes.

As the chart shows, the age-standardized share of American adults with unhealthy cholesterol levels has declined over the past 25 years. Age-standardized means the data accounts for the rising age of the population over time.

Data comes from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a national study conducted every two years. In this study, blood measurements are taken from thousands of people to monitor these trends.

One important reason for the decline in cholesterol is the use of statins. Statins are prescribed to effectively reduce levels of LDL (“bad”) cholesterol. These reduce the formation of cholesterol-filled plaques in the arteries and, thereby, the rates of heart attacks and strokes.

As the chart shows, statins have become more commonly used among adults eligible to take them.

Along with other medications, surgeries, and public health efforts, they’ve helped turn cardiovascular diseases into more manageable conditions. In the US, the age-standardized death rate from cardiovascular diseases has declined for decades and is almost four times lower today than in 1950.

Explore more data on cardiovascular disease, its risk factors, and treatment

Continue reading
Line chart showing the share of the workforce that are employed in agriculture since 1300. Centuries ago this share was more than 50% in countries like the UK, France and Netherlands. Now it's only a few percent.

In the past, most people worked in agriculture; in today’s rich countries, only a small share do

For most of human history since the agricultural revolution, the majority of the labor force in countries like France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and the Netherlands worked in agriculture.

However, over the last few centuries, this share has plummeted. Today, less than 10% of the workforce is employed in agriculture, and in many cases, it's just a few percent.

This trend is shown clearly in the chart, which is based on data from the International Labour Organization and historical reconstructions by Broadberry and Gardner (2013) and Herrendorf et al. (2014), as we’ve documented in detail.

The chart also includes the even steeper decline in agricultural employment in China over the last 50 years, as people have shifted to manufacturing and services.

Explore this data on agricultural employment across more countries →

Continue reading
A line chart showing the unemployment rate in the European Union from 1991 to 2023. In 2023, unemployment declined to 6%, its lowest point in 30 years.

In 2023, unemployment in the European Union declined to the lowest point in over three decades

Last year, the European Union's population experienced its lowest unemployment rate in over thirty years.

The chart shows that unemployment rates were above 10% in the mid-1990s and early 2010s. The rate has steadily declined since its peak in 2013, nearly halving over the past ten years.

Unemployment refers to individuals who are available for and actively seeking work but cannot find employment. It differs from economic inactivity, which includes people who are neither working nor actively looking for work.

Explore more unemployment data →

Continue reading
A line graph titled "What share of the population was born in another country?" displays two trends over time from 1990 to 2020.

A blue line labeled "High-income countries" demonstrates that, between 1990 and 2020, the share of people born in another country doubled, rising steadily from just above 7% in 1990 to more than 14% in 2020. In contrast, a red line labeled "Global average" indicates a much slower increase, starting from approximately 3% in 1990 and reaching just under 4% by 2020, indicating slight growth.

The data source is listed at the bottom as the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, along with a website link: OurWorldInData.org/migration and a copyright indication (CC BY).

The share of immigrants in high-income countries doubled between 1990 and 2020

In international statistics, immigrants are people who have lived for more than one year in a country other than the one where they were born.

Between 1990 and 2020, the share of immigrants in high-income countries doubled, rising from around 7% to 14%. This means that today, one in seven people in high-income countries was born in a different country.

High-income countries often attract migrants with better living conditions, including higher wages, stable political environments, and better public services. In turn, migration has become a crucial driver of population growth in these countries: without migration, the population of high-income countries would have declined since 2020.

This growth is much quicker than in other parts of the world. In contrast, the global share of migrants increased only slightly, with less than one percentage point.

Explore the percentage of immigrants in all countries

Continue reading
A line chart showing the share of Poland's electricity coming from solar and wind. This has increased quickly in recent years, reaching 21% in 2023.

Solar and wind power is growing quickly in Poland, but coal still dominates

The share of electricity produced by solar and wind in Poland almost doubled in just two years. In 2021, these renewable sources produced just 11% of its power; by 2023, this was 21%.

You can see this growth in the chart above, based on electricity data from Ember.

Poland still has one of the most coal-intensive electricity mixes in Europe, with coal producing 61% of its power. The country has committed to moving away from coal in the next few decades; growing solar and wind generation will play a key role in this.

Explore energy sources across the world in our Data Explorer →

Continue reading

Get Daily Data Insights delivered to your inbox

Receive an email from us when we publish a Daily Data Insight (every weekday).

By subscribing you are agreeing to the terms of our privacy policy.

Explore our data

Featured data from our collection of 13,228 interactive charts.

See all our data

What share of children die before their fifth birthday?

What could be more tragic than the death of a young child? Child mortality, the death of children under the age of five, is still extremely common in our world today.

The historical data makes clear that it doesn’t have to be this way: it is possible for societies to protect their children and reduce child mortality to very low rates. For child mortality to reach low levels, many things have to go right at the same time: good healthcare, good nutrition, clean water and sanitation, maternal health, and high living standards. We can, therefore, think of child mortality as a proxy indicator of a country’s living conditions.

The chart shows our long-run data on child mortality, which allows you to see how child mortality has changed in countries around the world.

Explore and learn more about this data
Explore and learn more about this data

Share of population living in extreme povertyWorld Bank

Life expectancy at birthLong-run estimates collated from multiple sources by Our World in Data

Per capita CO₂ emissionsLong-run estimates from the Global Carbon Budget

GDP per capitaLong-run estimates from the Maddison Project Database

Share of people that are undernourishedFAO

Literacy rateLong-run estimates collated from multiple sources by Our World in Data

Share of the population with access to electricityWorld Bank

Data explorers

See all our Data Explorers

Interactive visualization tools to explore a wide range of related indicators.

Subscribe to our newsletters

Receive our latest work by email.
By subscribing you are agreeing to the terms of our privacy policy.

All our topics

All our data, research, and writing — topic by topic.

Population and Demographic Change

Health

Energy and Environment

Food and Agriculture

Poverty and Economic Development

Education and Knowledge

Innovation and Technological Change

Living Conditions, Community, and Wellbeing

Human Rights and Democracy

Violence and War