Methodology

Latest values

For World Bank indicators, each country's most recent value is used, provided it is no more than five years older than the latest year most countries report. The year of each value is shown when years differ.

Slices

A ranking is also published for a continent, income group or year only when at least eight items have data. Continents follow Wikidata; countries spanning two continents are listed under one (for example Russia under Europe, Turkey under Asia). Income groups follow the World Bank's classification.

Changes

“Fastest growth” and “fastest decline” pages compare each country's latest value with its value five years earlier. Amounts (people, dollars, tonnes) are shown as a percentage change. Shares, rates and indices are shown as a change in points, because a percentage change of a percentage is misleading.

Computed values

Densities are population divided by area, from the same source. No value is estimated or filled in from another site; items without data are left out.

Updates

Data is checked weekly and pages are rebuilt only when the data changed. Each page shows when its data was retrieved, not the build date.

Translations

Pages in languages other than English are translated by ChowChow Rankings. Place names come from Wikidata. The English page is the reference if anything differs.

Corrections

If a figure looks wrong, the provider's page linked at the foot of each ranking is the authority. Wikidata values can be corrected by anyone on Wikidata and appear here after the next weekly update.