World Bank
World population keeps compounding
Annual World Bank observations show the scale and persistence of global population growth.
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World Vitals / Data Explorer
Explore the metric registry.
Explore normalized observations, dimensions, relationships, and source-labelled metrics. Charts here are chosen for the data shape: time series for change over time and scatter plots for relationships.
Database dimensions
Start with the shape of the data
The database now exposes source, dataset, indicator, topic, location, time, observation, derived metric, and insight dimensions. Charts below are drawn from normalized observations, not decorative stand-ins.
Sources14
Datasets4
Indicators61
Observations4,936
Locations2
Time span1960-2026
air-pollutioncrop-yieldseconomyeducationenergyenvironmentfertilizersfish-stocksfood-pricesfossil-fuelsglobal-foodgovernment-riskhabitat-losshealthmigrationmineralsnatural-resourcespopulationpovertywater-food
8.1B2024
World Bank
The world has become majority urban
World Bank observations show the global population shift toward cities and towns.
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World Bank
Population density keeps rising
Global density shows the pressure placed on land, infrastructure, and ecosystems.
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World Bank
The global birth rate has fallen over decades
The demographic story is not just population growth; it is also a sustained fertility transition.
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World Bank
The global death rate changed more slowly
Death-rate movement helps explain why live population counters need source-labelled assumptions.
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World Bank
Global GDP has expanded by orders of magnitude
Current-dollar GDP is not inflation-adjusted, but it makes the size of the world economy legible.
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World Bank
World GDP per person has climbed unevenly
GDP per capita makes the economic scale more comparable than total GDP alone.
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World Bank
Global unemployment moves with economic shocks
The ILO-modelled World Bank series shows labour-market stress rather than output scale.
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World Bank
Electricity access became near-universal globally
The remaining gap is still large in human terms, but the historical direction is clear.
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World Bank
Energy use per person tracks industrial intensity
Per-capita energy use shows demand pressure without confusing it with population growth.
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World Bank
Renewables are a growing electricity share
This share is about electricity output, not total energy consumption.
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World Bank
Fossil electricity remains structurally important
The fossil share shows why energy transition charts need both clean and legacy-system views.
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World Bank
Forest area has slowly declined as a share of land
Forest area is a land-system pressure indicator, not a climate-emissions proxy.
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World Bank
Agricultural land reveals food-system land pressure
This land-use series connects food, biodiversity, and environmental change.
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World Bank
Freshwater withdrawals measure water stress pressure
Withdrawals as a share of internal resources are a stress signal, not a household-access measure.
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World Bank
Basic drinking-water access has improved
Basic access and safely managed access need to be charted separately because they answer different questions.
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World Bank
Safely managed water remains the harder target
This series is stricter than basic access and better explains service quality gaps.
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World Bank
Basic sanitation has improved but remains incomplete
Sanitation charts should sit beside water charts, not be hidden inside a generic basic-needs score.
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World Bank
Undernourishment remains a persistent food-security signal
The prevalence rate gives a clearer trend than a single headline count.
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Global food prices are rising again
The FAO Food Price Index tracks monthly international prices for a basket of traded food commodities.
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Cereal prices show staple-food pressure
Cereals are tracked separately because staple grain pressure can move differently from the full food basket.
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Vegetable oils are the volatile pressure point
The oils index often reacts strongly to energy markets, biofuel demand, weather, and trade disruption.
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Meat prices reached record territory
The FAO meat index helps separate animal-protein market pressure from cereals, dairy, oils, and sugar.
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Dairy prices are moving differently from the full basket
Dairy can diverge from the headline food index because milk supply cycles and export demand differ.
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Sugar prices swing with harvests and energy-linked ethanol demand
Sugar is tracked separately because supply expectations and biofuel economics can dominate the signal.
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World Bank
Adult literacy is the baseline education signal
Literacy is not the whole education story, but it gives the page a globally comparable outcome measure.
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World Bank
Lower secondary completion tracks school-system throughput
Completion rates show whether enrolment is turning into finished schooling.
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World Bank
Tertiary enrolment shows higher-education expansion
Gross tertiary enrolment makes the scale of post-secondary education visible over time.
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World Bank
Education spending anchors the finance side
Public education expenditure as a share of GDP helps separate inputs from schooling outcomes.
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World Bank
PM2.5 exposure remains a global health burden
Mean annual PM2.5 exposure is the cleanest global baseline for air-pollution pressure.
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World Bank
Cereal yields show farming productivity
Yield per hectare separates production gains from simply using more land.
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World Bank
Cereal production shows staple-food scale
Production volume is useful beside yields because total supply depends on both productivity and area.
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World Bank
Fertilizer use is an intensification signal
Fertilizer consumption per hectare helps explain yield pressure and environmental trade-offs.
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World Bank
Fertilizer production adds supply-side context
Production share gives the fertilizer page a second view beyond farm-level consumption.
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World Bank
Fish production combines capture and aquaculture
Total fisheries production is a first global signal before stock-assessment detail is added.
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World Bank
Capture fisheries show wild-harvest pressure
Capture production is separated from aquaculture because the ecological story is different.
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World Bank
Aquaculture has become a major supply system
Aquaculture production shows how farmed fish has changed global seafood supply.
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World Bank
Fossil fuels still dominate total energy use
This share covers total energy use, so it is broader than electricity generation alone.
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World Bank
Renewables are a final-energy share, not just electricity
Final energy consumption gives the energy-impact page a broader transition signal.
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World Bank
Electricity use per person tracks demand intensity
Per-capita electricity consumption shows demand pressure without hiding population scale.
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World Bank
Extreme poverty is the core poverty baseline
The international poverty line provides a comparable global headline before national poverty lines are added.
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World Bank
Urban slum exposure shows living-condition pressure
Slum-population share adds a housing and infrastructure dimension to the poverty page.
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World Bank
International migrant stock has climbed
The total stock shows how many people live outside their country of birth.
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World Bank
Migrant share shows migration relative to population
The share avoids confusing migration growth with overall population growth.
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World Bank
Protected areas are expanding on paper
Protected-area coverage is a first habitat signal, but it still needs quality and enforcement context.
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World Bank
Terrestrial protection tracks land-conservation coverage
Land protection should be read beside forest, agriculture, and biodiversity indicators.
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World Bank
Natural resource rents show extraction dependence
Rents as a share of GDP reveal how much economic output is tied to resource extraction.
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World Bank
Mineral rents are a first critical-minerals proxy
Mineral rents do not identify individual commodities, but they do expose mining dependence.
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World Bank
Oil rents reveal petroleum exposure
Oil rents as a share of GDP help connect fossil fuels to macroeconomic dependence.
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World Bank
Natural gas rents add another fossil-income layer
Gas rents are tracked separately because gas markets and energy-security risk behave differently from oil.
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World Bank
Coal rents remain a smaller but important signal
Coal rents help separate extraction income from consumption and emissions.
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World Bank
Forest rents link resource use and land systems
Forest rents add an economic layer to forest-area and habitat indicators.
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World Health Organization
Life expectancy rose, then dipped during the pandemic era
WHO GHO global both-sex observations show the long rise and the recent reversal.
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World Bank
World Bank life expectancy gives a comparable annual health baseline
A second life-expectancy series helps cross-check WHO and World Bank health baselines.
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World Health Organization
Under-five mortality has fallen sharply
WHO GHO shows a sustained decline in deaths before age five per 1,000 live births.
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World Bank
World Bank under-five mortality confirms the long decline
The trend is one of the strongest global health stories in the database.
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World Bank
Health expenditure shows system burden
Health spending as a share of GDP is a system-pressure measure, not a direct health outcome.
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World Bank
Primary completion tracks basic education progress
Education belongs in the core dimensions because it explains long-run social and economic change.
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World Bank
Military expenditure share tracks state risk priorities
The share of GDP spent on the military is a better comparison than total spend alone.
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World Bank
Military expenditure has risen in current-dollar terms
Total military spend shows scale; the GDP share shows burden.
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World Bank WDI
Prosperity and health improved together
Each dot is one global year where GDP per person overlaps life expectancy.
Each dot is one paired year. Hover or focus a dot for both values and the year it represents.
World Bank WDI
Electricity access rose as child mortality fell
Each dot is one global year linking infrastructure access to under-five mortality.
Each dot is one paired year. Hover or focus a dot for both values and the year it represents.
World Bank WDI
Water and sanitation access improved together
Paired annual observations show whether basic water and sanitation progress are moving together.
Each dot is one paired year. Hover or focus a dot for both values and the year it represents.
World Bank WDI
Land-use pressure links agriculture and forest area
This paired view separates land-system structure from emissions and climate impacts.
Each dot is one paired year. Hover or focus a dot for both values and the year it represents.
World Bank WDI
Energy use and GDP per person expose development intensity
Per-capita energy use and GDP per person show scale without population hiding the relationship.
Each dot is one paired year. Hover or focus a dot for both values and the year it represents.
World Bank WDI
Health-system spend and life expectancy tell different stories
This relationship helps avoid treating expenditure as an automatic outcome measure.
Each dot is one paired year. Hover or focus a dot for both values and the year it represents.
World Bank WDI
Fertilizer intensity and cereal yield move together
This paired view helps separate productivity gains from land expansion.
Each dot is one paired year. Hover or focus a dot for both values and the year it represents.
World Bank WDI
Aquaculture rose while capture fisheries flattened
The paired path shows the structural shift inside global seafood supply.
Each dot is one paired year. Hover or focus a dot for both values and the year it represents.
World Bank WDI
Fossil and renewable energy shares expose the transition gap
The relationship uses total energy shares rather than electricity alone.
Each dot is one paired year. Hover or focus a dot for both values and the year it represents.
World Bank WDI
Migrant stock and migrant share show different scales
The stock rises in people while the share shows migration relative to total population.
Each dot is one paired year. Hover or focus a dot for both values and the year it represents.
World Bank WDI
Protection and forest cover are not the same signal
Protected-area coverage needs to sit beside habitat-state indicators rather than replace them.
Each dot is one paired year. Hover or focus a dot for both values and the year it represents.
Metrics16
Source publishers7
Live estimates6
Active watches1
Showing 16 of 16 metrics
latest snapshot / 2024 / critical
106MWHO/UNICEF JMPDrinking surface water
WHO/UNICEF JMP estimate of people who continue to drink surface water.
estimated live / 2025 projection / high
13.53BGlobal Carbon ProjectFossil CO2 this year
Run-rate estimate from Global Carbon Project fossil CO2 projection.
latest annual / 2025 projection / high
42.2BGlobal Carbon ProjectTotal CO2 emissions
Projected total global CO2 emissions including fossil fuels and land-use change.
latest snapshot / 2024 / high
2.1BWHO/UNICEF JMPWithout safely managed drinking water
WHO/UNICEF JMP estimate of people without safely managed drinking-water services.
latest snapshot / 2024 / high
673MFAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHOPeople facing hunger
Approximate latest UN estimate of people affected by chronic undernourishment.
estimated live / 2024 / elevated
$965.11BSIPRIMilitary spending this year
Run-rate estimate from SIPRI's 2024 world military expenditure total.
watch / 2026 / watch
8World Health OrganizationHantavirus active watch
Active World Vitals watch page for the MV Hondius Andes hantavirus cluster.
estimated live / 2024 / stable
8.14BWorld BankWorld population
Latest World Bank world population value, advanced as a live estimate using crude birth and death rates.
estimated live / 2024 / stable
47.05MWorld BankBirths this year
Estimated from the World Bank crude birth rate and world population.
estimated live / 2024 / stable
21.83MWorld BankDeaths this year
Estimated from the World Bank crude death rate and world population.
latest annual / 2024 / stable
$110.98TWorld BankWorld GDP
Latest World Bank world GDP value in current US dollars.
estimated live / 2024 / stable
$39.41TWorld BankEconomic output this year
Live-rate estimate from latest annual world GDP. It is an economic tempo indicator, not real-time accounting.
latest annual / 2023 / stable
91.6%World BankAccess to electricity
World Bank estimate of the share of the global population with access to electricity.
latest annual / 2023 / stable
2.2%International Energy AgencyElectricity demand growth
IEA reported global electricity demand growth for 2023, with higher growth forecast through 2026.
latest annual / 2024 / stable
37.4World BankUnder-5 mortality rate
World Bank world under-5 mortality estimate, deaths per 1,000 live births.
latest annual / 2021 / stable
9MWorld Health OrganizationDeaths from ischaemic heart disease
WHO Global Health Estimates identify ischaemic heart disease as the leading cause of death.