A Look At The Developing World Through Colors by Wishyoulization | Alok Pepakayala & Mayank Arora

Use the below interactive data visualization tools to look at 26 unique development indicaters for about 215 countries across a span of 50 years. If you are right brained, we hope you love the map tool. If not, just keep scrolling and put the tools in autopilot mode while you read an interesting analysis.

Waving flags: a scatter plot tool

Maybe you like visuals, but is the map too artistic to see the insights and trends? A scatterplot is likely more on the geeky end of the spectrum, but you can really uncover some new trends using it. Go burn the sliders!

CASESTUDY: Alien Migration Agency

Let's entertain this for a while: If you were an alien who wishes to enter earth as a human and have an opportunity to choose the country in which you can live in, knowing which country is more developed will help you choose wisely. Yes, choosing the country alone will not determine your fate on this planet. But, if that's the only choice you have; The following series of maps and analysis will help you immensely.

Well, you do not get to pick the year you are born in. But by looking at how a country developed in one lifetime is a very good indicator of how it would shape up in the near future, to help you see how each country has improved over the years we built a timeline feature into the map above. What's better than one? Well, two for sure! Yes, there are two maps above, and you can set them up individually and slide them across for quick comparision, we also recommend you use different colors for different data sets. And, finally don't forget to zoom in/out to see the map in detail and hover/click on a country to see the exact stats.

World Population – 2016

So, we understand, you’ve been in space for a while now, you’re quite used to space and are looking for some space. Now that we’ve established this, let’s get started and find you a place which isn’t teeming with people.

Whoa! That settles one thing, India and China are a definite NO-GO. Let’s start looking at some other options, however before we place a major part of the Indian Peninsular outside the purview of this discussion, let’s be absolutely sure we are not jumping to an unfounded conclusion.

Surface Area – 2016

Based on what we already know about the population of India and China, when we introduce their Surface Area into the mix, it’s quite evident these are countries with high population density, esp. India.

While there seem to be many countries which are not overcrowded, however Canada, Australia, Russia and Argentina seem to stand out. Their land mass is either in proportion or greater than their population, which allows people to live in a less crowded environment.

Now, if I was to ask you – based on just what you’ve seen so far – which regions are you likely to select? You might be tempted to consider either one of these three: Africa, Europe or Australasia. So, let’s dig deeper, consider some other parameters and help you decide which country would best fit your needs.

GDP

Purely in terms of GDP, we have a few possible contenders, a handful of countries are better off that the rest: The North-American countries (US & Canada), Brazil, Western Europe (Germany, France, and UK), Russia, South Korea, Japan and Australia. Bear in mind, while both India and China are definitely better off in terms of GDP, they regrettably did not meet your primary criteria of low population density.

Additionally, the GDP of African countries seem to be weaker than most others, so not a place we would strongly recommend, however let’s not discount them completely yet. They might spring a surprise on some other economic parameter.

While it’s essential to appreciate the utility of GDP, it’s a strong indicator of a country’s current standing, and is largely a derivative of its past performance, its path dependence. It however may not be a strong precursor about the future.

Total Reserves

Now we don’t want your future to be bleak, so we shall try to put you in a country, or a region, with a better possibility of a sustainable future. If we were to compare countries by the amount of natural reserves at their disposal (something which they can leverage in the future), interestingly we find our earlier suspects back in action.

The US, Brazil, Russia, South Korea, and Japan seem to be economic heavyweights, both in terms of past performance [GDP] and future capability. There are a couple of noted new entrants: Saudi Arabia and Switzerland.

Unfortunately, the African countries continue to lag the economic big-wigs and we think it might be time to accept the possibility that they might not be the feasible from purely the economic stand-point.

Now, let’s pause here for a while and think something through. Mother Earth being a beautiful place, it’s highly likely you are going to apply for a PR (permanent residence) once you absorb her beauty. So, we need to ensure we help identify a place or a region, where you will be happy, comfortable and at peace. Given that happiness is a state of wellbeing, let’s look at our planet from another lens and not solely from an economic standpoint.

Countries where citizens have jobs, earn wages, have food on the table, along with a constitution which provides health-care support should be a good place to live, even if it means not having a strong GDP, in all likelihood it will have a happier populace.

So, let’s find you a country which can balance both ends of the spectrum.

Unemployment

Places like Madagascar, Thailand, Niger, Bolivia come across as places with low unemployment, however if we double back to their GDP performance, we’ll realize they really aren’t that balanced. Also some of south European counties seem to be grappling with relatively high unemployment.

Public Health Spending

Now if we were to juxtapose the data for Public Health Spending with our earlier finding across GDP, Total Reserve, and Unemployment, we find many of our earlier shortlisted countries back: The North American ones, Western Europe (esp. Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian region), Australia, and Japan.

Trivia: It seems healthcare spending is relatively higher in Uruguay and Columbia. Even African countries show promise on this scale.

Let’s try another perspective for which we’ll assume you’re not too fond of CO2, even though you are in all likelihood a carbon based life-form, however just like us, CO2, may not be your juice. So let us identify which of the shortlisted countries has a significantly lower CO2 emission level.

CO₂ emission levels

Evidently it’s the European countries of Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and France, which despite being more industrialized economies, are a lot more considerate about pollution levels than many of the other countries.

Is it possible Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland have managed to strike a balance between quality of life and prosperity.

Since we have come so far, let’s try to really pin it down. Also we want you to put in a good word to your fellow migrating aliens about the quality of our service.

Given that we have till now been able to select a few countries, however to be absolutely sure let us put these countries through another test and see if they are indeed worthy of being recommended as places you can definitely settle down. Now, if it was me, I would want to stay in a forward looking progressive country, and I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you are no different.

Renewable energy consumption

When we think of a forward looking country, it would be one which has understood the implication of its actions, not just on itself but on the whole world. A county moving away from prosaic forms of energy towards renewable resources would be one such country.

Although the African countries seem to be leading the way towards greater adoption of renewable sources of energy, unfortunately, they did not instill confidence on the earlier measures.

Again, Sweden, Denmark and to some extent Switzerland seem to be out-performing the other countries.

Notable mention must be given to the countries of the Indian Peninsular and the South American countries for pushing the envelope on renewable energy adoption.

Let’s try another pass and see if these countries are also progressive.

Percent of women in parliaments

The fact that there are women in a county’s parliament would signify its belief – amongst other things – in equality. While this is not a fool proof way to gauge a country’s progressive outlook, it’s still an indication of the expectations one may hope to have from such a country.

Over the years while most of the countries have been improving on this parameter, and catching up with their European counterparts, however there continues to be high disparity among countries. The Scandinavian region, based on their historical aggregated advantage, have a strong representation of female law makers with Sweden being one of the leaders.

Given that we have looked at many aspects, many perspectives, from economic outlook to quality of life to the cultural set-up, are we any closer to a recommendation? I believe we are, based on what we have seen so far, the Scandinavian region, esp. Sweden should be a good place for you to settle down.

Acknowledgements

We wholeheartedly thank the following people for their tremendous support and encouragement, it helped us build this piece over a weekend: Lester Gunnion, Joanie Pearson, Alok Ranjan, and Sandeep Chandola.

And finally thanks to the -- vistors who were here.

About the Authors

Alok is the data visualization developer who built the above magical map and this page.

Mayank spent time tinkering with the tool to try and help the aliens select a country around their various requirements.