Today

Data Insight

Slope chart of the share of the population that is undernourished where regional shares are compared between 2014 and 2024, showing increases across all African regions and Middle Africa highest at 30% in 2024. Source: Food and Agriculture Organization (2025). License: CC BY.

Hunger levels have increased across Africa over the last decade

In every region of Africa, hunger is more prevalent than a decade ago.

The chart shows the increase in the share of the population that is undernourished, comparing 2014 and 2024 (the most recent year available). These estimates come from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

The situation across Africa is dire. In Middle Africa, where hunger is most acute, almost 1 in 3 people are undernourished. In Eastern Africa, the figure is roughly 1 in 4. Across Africa as a whole, it's 1 in 5.

This marks a reversal of a longer positive trend: over the preceding decades, hunger had been falling across much of the world, including parts of Africa. That progress has now stalled or gone into reverse. Conflict, extreme weather, and the economic disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic have all contributed.

Explore this data interactively, for all countries and regions in the world.

Yesterday

Article

What do people die from in different countries?

Explore causes of death data for all countries, spanning more than four decades.

Hannah Ritchie, Sophia Mersmann, and Fiona Spooner

April 11

Data Insight

Small multiple line charts of mobile and landline phone subscriptions per 100 people from 1960 to 2023 for the United States, United Kingdom, Ghana, and Nigeria, where mobiles and landlines are plotted separately. The US and UK show landlines dominant until mobiles overtake in the early 2000s. Ghana and Nigeria show almost no landline adoption and rapid, explosive growth in mobile subscriptions.

Many countries are “leapfrogging” landlines and going straight to mobile phones

The concept of “leapfrogging” is popular in development. It suggests that, as they develop, lower-income countries can skip intermediate technologies or systems and go straight to the modern equivalent.

One example of this is the use of landlines and mobile phones.

The landline telephone was invented in 1876 and became a dominant form of communication across Europe and North America. As you can see in the chart, it was increasingly adopted in the United States and the United Kingdom throughout the 20th century.

However, mobile phone adoption increased rapidly in the 1990s, and landlines have declined since the millennium. Mobile phones have become a substitute.

But many countries have almost skipped landline adoption entirely. Ghana and Nigeria are good examples: landline subscriptions have remained extremely low, and instead, mobile phone adoption has exploded.

Explore landline and mobile subscriptions in more countries.

How much is the US spending on building data centers?

Veronika Samborska

Data centers are the backbone of AI, cloud computing, and other digital services — and spending to build them has increased rapidly in the United States.

As of January 2026, US spending on data center construction was over $2.4 billion per month, roughly 16 times the level in early 2014.

This growth has been especially rapid since AI chatbots have become very popular, starting in late 2022. Monthly spending has nearly tripled since then.

It’s important to note that this only covers the cost of building the physical structures. Servers and other hardware inside are excluded, and they can make up a large share of the total cost of a data center.

I recently updated our chart with the latest data from the US Census Bureau. I do this quarterly, so our next update will be around June 2026.

Explore the interactive version of this chart

Line chart of monthly spending on data center construction in the United States from 2013 to 2026 where spending stays mostly below $1 billion through 2022 but rises sharply after the annotated point "ChatGPT released Nov 30, 2022" and reaches about $2.5 billion by 2026. Data are expressed in constant 2021 US dollars and are not seasonally adjusted. Data source: US Census Bureau (2026); US BLS (2026). License: CC BY.

April 9

Data Insight

Line chart of estimated annual suicide deaths per 100,000 people from 1980 to 2023, where the global rate peaks near 15 per 100,000 in 1995 and then declines to about 9 per 100,000 by 2023 (roughly a 40% fall). The estimates are age-standardized and based on modeled global suicide patterns that include adjustments for missing data and underreporting. Data source: IHME, Global Burden of Disease (2025). License: CC BY.

The global suicide rate has fallen since the 1990s, but the death toll is still high

Even after years of working with global health data, one statistic that I’m always struck by is the number of people who die by suicide every year. In 2023, it was estimated to be around three-quarters of a million.

That means suicides account for more than 1 in every 100 deaths in the world.

But a world where so many die from suicide is not inevitable. We know this because global suicide rates have fallen by an estimated 40% since the 1990s.

You can see this in the chart: rates have fallen from 15 to 9 deaths per 100,000 people over the last thirty years.

The large differences between countries also suggest that there are things that can be done to reduce this number even further.

Banning particularly toxic pesticides is one effective way to reduce suicide deaths in low- to middle-income countries; I looked at this in detail in a recent article.

Californians now travel nearly 10 million kilometers each month in driverless taxis

Veronika Samborska

In December 2024, passengers in California's driverless taxis were traveling around 3.8 million kilometers per month.

By the end of 2025, that figure had climbed to roughly 9.4 million — more than doubling in a single year. You can see this increase in the chart.

This data comes from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which requires companies operating paid driverless taxi services to file detailed quarterly reports on passenger distance, safety incidents, and other operational data. (Only Waymo has been in operation since late 2023.)

The reports are published on the CPUC's website, making it possible to track this fast-moving industry with publicly available, standardized data.

I recently updated this chart with the CPUC's latest quarterly report and will continue to do so each time they publish one.

Explore this data in our interactive chart

Bar chart of monthly passenger kilometers traveled in California's paid driverless taxis, where monthly totals rise from near zero in April 2023 to about 10 million km by December 31, 2025, showing rapid growth from early 2024 onward. The chart highlights steady monthly increases with especially large gains in late 2024 and through 2025. Source: California Public Utilities Commission (2026). License: CC BY.

April 7

Data Insight

Side-by-side horizontal bar chart of national shares of global rare earths production and known reserves in 2024, where each country’s production share and reserves share are compared. It shows China dominating both production and reserves (about 69% production and 49% reserves). The United States and Myanmar have notable production shares (about 11.5% and 8% respectively) despite much smaller reserves. Brazil, India, Vietnam, and Russia hold large reserves, but mine very little of them (their production shares are all below 1%).

Brazil, India, Vietnam, and Russia hold large reserves of rare earth, but mine very little of them

Some technologies central to the clean energy transition depend on rare earth elements. The permanent magnets found in many electric vehicle motors and wind turbine generators rely on them. They are also used in some military hardware.

China dominates global production of rare earths; in 2024, it accounted for nearly 70% of the global total.

But the picture is not as concentrated when you examine which countries have rare-earth reserves. That is what the chart shows, plotting production and reserve shares side by side. China still holds the most known reserves, but at 49%, this is substantially lower than its production share.

Brazil holds 23% of reserves and is barely mining them. India, Vietnam, and Russia also hold significant reserves, but only a small fraction of current output.

The large gap between where reserves are located and where mining occurs partly reflects China's early investment in mining infrastructure and processing capacity, which other producers have not yet matched. Other countries hold the geological potential but have not yet developed the infrastructure to convert it into production at scale.

April 4

Data Insight

Line chart of the estimated share of newborns who die before reaching the age of five from 1950 to 2023 where child mortality in China spikes to about 1 in 3 children during the Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1962), producing a noticeable uptick in global rates. After the 1960s both China and world rates decline steadily to low single digits by 2023.

China’s Great Leap Forward caused a dramatic spike in child deaths

Child mortality rates in China have fallen from more than 20% in 1950 to less than 1% today.

But this steady progress was interrupted in the late 1950s during the “Great Leap Forward”. This was China’s national plan to industrialize rapidly, but it resulted in widespread famine and economic turmoil.

As the chart shows, child mortality rates spiked in China over this period, with up to one in three children dying before reaching the age of five. This change was so dramatic that it is also clearly visible in the global trend.

This data comes from the UN’s World Population Prospects.

Explore child mortality for all countries in our interactive chart.

Are Americans worried about AI taking their jobs?

Veronika Samborska

As artificial intelligence advances rapidly, how are Americans’ attitudes about it changing? Are they becoming more concerned about automation, or less?

Answering these questions is harder than it might seem. Long-run, comparable opinion data on AI is rare. Most surveys only provide a snapshot at a single point in time, making it hard to track meaningful changes in public sentiment.

Two recurring surveys from YouGov, a UK-based polling and market research firm, are among the few sources that let us study these trends over time.

One survey, shown in the chart here, asks working American adults how worried they are about their jobs being automated.

The other asks Americans whether robots will ever surpass human intelligence.

I recently updated both charts with the latest releases from YouGov. Both surveys are updated twice a year, with the next release expected around mid-2026.

Explore the updated data in our interactive charts

Stacked bar chart of survey responses showing how worried US working adults are that their work could be automated within their lifetime, across survey waves from January 14, 2021 to January 7, 2026. The data source is the YouGov (2026). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

How much revenue do governments collect, and where does it come from?

Pablo Arriagada

Governments fund public services — from healthcare and education to infrastructure and defense — largely through taxation.

But how much tax revenue countries collect varies widely, as the chart shows. Here, it's expressed as a share of GDP to allow comparison across countries of different sizes.

In some countries, like Bangladesh and Ethiopia, tax revenue is less than 10% of GDP. In others, like Italy and France, it’s more than 40%.

Understanding how governments raise revenue is key to understanding fiscal policy, state capacity, and the relationship between taxation and development.

The UNU-WIDER Government Revenue Dataset is one of the most comprehensive cross-country datasets on government revenue composition.

I recently updated our charts with the latest release, which now covers 198 countries and territories from 1980 to 2023.

Explore all of the updated data in our interactive charts

Choropleth world map of tax revenue as share of GDP in 2023 where country shading indicates tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. It shows higher shares around 35 to 45 in much of Europe, parts of Latin America, and Australia, and lower shares around 0 to 15 across many countries in Africa and parts of Asia. Several countries are marked as having no data. The data source is the UNU-WIDER Government Revenue Dataset (2025). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

There are now nearly 800 million active mobile money accounts in the world

Veronika Samborska

You probably use a bank account every day without thinking about it — to buy groceries, pay a bill, or receive your salary.

But for more than a billion people worldwide, transactions only happen with cash — no easy way to send or receive money remotely, and a constant risk of loss or theft.

Mobile money is changing this.

Unlike banking apps or services like Venmo, it doesn't require a bank account, smartphone, or internet. People make payments and receive deposits by simply dialling a short code on a basic mobile phone.

This technology has spread rapidly, especially across Sub-Saharan Africa, where hundreds of millions of people now rely on it.

You can see this in the chart, which I recently updated with the latest release of the Global Mobile Money Dataset from the GSM Association (GSMA). The GSMA has tracked mobile money data since 2009. The data now extends through 2024.

In our article, you can read more about mobile money and how it's expanding financial access and changing lives.

Explore the interactive version of this chart

Stacked area chart of active mobile money accounts by region where global accounts rise from near zero in 2010 to nearly 800 million by 2025. Growth is driven largely by Sub-Saharan Africa, with increasing contributions from East Asia and Pacific, South Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The data source is GSM Association (2025). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

April 2

Data Insight

Estimated share of abortions that are unsafe

Horizontal bar chart showing estimated percentage of abortions that are unsafe by region, with a global average highlighted at 45%. A note above explains safe abortions have a fatality rate of less than 1 per 100,000 abortions and that unsafe procedures can have fatality rates hundreds of times higher. Region values from highest to lowest: Sub-Saharan Africa 77%, Latin America 76%, North Africa 71%, South Asia 58%, Global average 45%, Eastern Europe 14%, East Asia 11%, Western Europe 7%, Northern Europe 2%, North America 1%.

Footer notes and data sources: based on modelled estimates over the period 2010 to 2014 (more recent data is not available); estimates of abortion rates and their safety are uncertain for many countries, particularly where abortions are banned or severely restricted. Data source: Ganatra et al. (2017), titled "Global, regional, and subregional classification of abortions by safety, 2010–14: estimates from a Bayesian hierarchical model." Published on OurWorldInData.org; chart licensed under CC-BY by the author Hannah Ritchie.

Estimates suggest that 45% of abortions globally are unsafe — but this varies widely across regions

Around 4 in 10 women worldwide live in countries where abortion is illegal or highly restricted. But these bans do not stop abortions completely; many women still get them, but in unsafe and unsanitary conditions.

A study published in The Lancet estimated that 45% of abortions globally are unsafe. In some regions, the share is estimated to be around three-quarters. You can see this in the chart.

This data is around ten years old, but represents the latest estimates available (suggesting that this topic gets very little attention).

Unsafe abortions dramatically increase the health risks for women. Safe abortions have very low mortality rates, typically below 1 death per 100,000 abortions.

In regions where the majority of abortions are unsafe, mortality rates can be several hundred times higher; in Western and Middle Africa, around 1 in 200 abortions result in the woman dying.

It’s estimated that approximately 8% of maternal deaths in the world are caused by unsafe abortions. That’s 23,000 women every year.

Where are people being forced from their homes because of conflict or disaster?

Tuna Acisu

A record 83 million people globally were living in internal displacement at the end of 2024 — forced from their homes by conflict, violence, or natural disasters, but remaining within their own country's borders.

Unlike refugees, who cross international borders, internally displaced people are often harder to track and don't show up in all migration statistics.

I recently updated around 20 of our charts with the latest data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

The data covers disaster-related displacements since 2008 and conflict-related displacements since 2009, with global coverage across all countries.

This data helps us better understand the human impact of natural disasters, conflicts, and violence — and helps NGOs and governments support those who have been displaced.

See the updated data in our Migration, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers Data Explorer

Choropleth world map of country-level counts of internally displaced people in 2024 where shading shows the number of people currently displaced within each country. The map highlights very large displaced populations in parts of eastern and central Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia (including Afghanistan and Pakistan), with notable levels in Colombia and parts of Southeast Asia. Much of Europe, North America, Australia and several countries in South America show low or no reported displacement. The data source is the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (2026). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

March 31

Data Insight

Bar chart of median government mental health expenditure per person per year by country income group, where high-income countries spend about $66 per person and low-income countries spend about $0.04. The chart highlights a large disparity in spending between high-income and lower-income countries. The data source is the WHO Mental Health Atlas (2024). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

Mental health care is scarce everywhere — but in poor countries, it barely exists

Depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems are common everywhere. They are not confined to any particular income level.

But access to care is rare. In much of the world, people who struggle with their mental health have almost no psychologists or psychiatrists to turn to.

Mental health care is scarce in all places, but it is much scarcer in poor countries. Governments in high-income countries spend about $66 per person per year on mental health care, as the chart shows. In low-income countries, that figure is $0.04.

This gap in spending reflects a gap in people. As the WHO’s latest Mental Health Atlas highlights, there is roughly one psychiatrist per million people in low-income countries. High-income countries have 70 times more.

A recent study in the Lancet Psychiatry estimated that globally, only 9% of people with major depressive disorder receive a “minimally adequate treatment”. In high-income countries, it is 27%; in Sub-Saharan Africa, just 2%.

Hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries live with treatable conditions and have no access to a psychologist or psychiatrist. It is one of the largest gaps in global health — and one that receives remarkably little attention or funding.

There are efforts to close this gap without waiting for the workforce to catch up. One approach is to train lay counsellors — people without formal clinical qualifications who learn to provide psychological support. Randomized trials in India and Zimbabwe have shown this can be effective for depression.

Another approach is to use technology: apps and, increasingly, AI-based tools that can extend the reach of limited clinical expertise. These are not substitutes for a functioning mental health system, but in places where that system barely exists, they offer a starting point.

Explore updated data on how consumer prices have changed in the United States

Pablo Arriagada

Since 1997, the price of college tuition in the United States has more than tripled. Over the same period, the price of televisions has fallen by 98%. You can see these and other trends in the chart.

This data comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which compiles the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — the standard measure of inflation in the United States. It tracks the average prices paid by urban consumers for a basket of goods and services.

I recently updated our chart with the latest CPI data across 12 categories — from medical care and housing to software and toys — showing how these prices have changed over the last decades.

Explore the interactive version of this chart

Line chart of percentage price changes in US consumer goods and services since 1997 where the chart highlights very large increases for college tuition and fees, day care and preschool, and medical care, moderate increases for housing and food and beverages, and smaller increases for items like new cars and clothing. It also shows substantial declines for televisions, toys, and computer software and accessories. The data source is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2026). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

March 30

Article

Battery costs have declined by 99% in the last three decades, making electrified transport a reality

Batteries have become much cheaper, making energy storage far more affordable.

Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado

Explore updated data on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) around the world

Tuna Acisu

Safe drinking water, sanitation, and handwashing facilities are basic human needs.

Individuals who can not use safe facilities have a higher risk of disease and malnutrition, and unsafe drinking water and sanitation contribute to millions of deaths each year.

The world has made significant progress in increasing their availability and usage.

But there is still more work to do — more than 2 billion people worldwide can not use a safe drinking water source on their premises.

To help you track this, I recently updated more than 50 of our charts — including our WASH Data Explorer — with the latest data from the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene.

With this update, our charts now include data through 2024.

Explore all of the updated data in our interactive charts

Choropleth world map of the proportion of people using safely managed drinking water in 2024 where it highlights regional disparities. Most high‑income regions show near‑universal access, while many countries in sub‑Saharan Africa and parts of South and Southeast Asia have low coverage, and several countries are hatched to indicate no data. Data source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (2025). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

Track the recovery of the ozone layer with updated data

Lucas Rodés-Guirao

The ozone layer plays a vital role in making the planet habitable for us and other species by absorbing most of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation.

But, during the 1970s–90s, humans were emitting large quantities of substances that depleted the ozone layer.

This led to the creation of ozone holes at the earth’s poles, exposing life to higher levels of ultraviolet radiation and increasing the risks of skin cancer in humans.

During the 1980s, the world came together to form an international agreement to reduce — and eventually eliminate — emissions of these depleting substances.

The political agreements were very effective. Since then, global emissions have fallen by more than 99%.

The ozone holes have stopped growing and are now starting to close.

I recently updated our charts with the latest data from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Ozone Watch, which tracks the size of the Antarctic ozone hole and the concentration of ozone in the stratosphere.

Explore the updated data in our interactive charts

Line chart of annual maximum and mean Antarctic stratospheric ozone hole area where both series rise from near 0 in the late 1970s to mostly 15 million to 30 million km² through the 1990s to 2000s. The lines then show substantial year-to-year variability with some notable drops and a general decline in recent years. The data source is NASA Ozone Watch (2025). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

March 28

Data Insight

Line chart of global seafood production from 1960 to 2022 comparing aquaculture and capture fisheries where aquaculture rises from near zero in the 1960s, accelerates from the 1990s, and overtakes capture fisheries around 2010. Capture fisheries grow earlier then level off, while aquaculture becomes the larger source of seafood by 2022. The data source is the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations via the World Bank (2026). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

The world gets more seafood from aquaculture than wild catch

There are two ways to produce seafood: catch fish in the wild or farm your own. Seafood farming is often called “aquaculture”. Aquaculture is dominated by the farming of fish, but also includes other organisms, such as crustaceans and aquatic plants.

Aquaculture has grown rapidly over the last few decades. In fact, as the chart shows, it has overtaken wild catch since 2013.

This has relieved some pressure on wild fish stocks: if this increased demand for fish had been satisfied by wild catch, then many more would be severely overexploited.

We’ve refreshed key static visualizations on population growth over the long run

Veronika SamborskaMarwa Boukarim

How has the world's population changed over the last 12,000 years? How quickly did it grow in different periods, and what do projections tell us about the rest of this century?

We've refreshed four of our most popular static charts that show you answers to these questions, updating them with the latest estimates and projections from the UN World Population Prospects (2024 revision).

These charts show up in multiple places across our work, including these two articles:

This is part of a broader effort by our team of data scientists to build new pipelines for our static visualizations — making it easier to keep them current as new data becomes available, and more consistent visually.

You can learn more about how we combine multiple sources to build our long-run population dataset, spanning from 10,000 BCE to 2100.

Explore all of our work on population on our dedicated topic page

World population growth, 1700 to 2100.

Area chart of world population over time with an overlaid line chart showing the annual growth rate. X axis runs from 1700 to 2100. Key population milestones annotated: about 595 million in 1700; 1 billion in 1805; 2 billion in 1927; 5 billion in 1987; 8 billion in 2022; projected 9 billion in 2037 and 10 billion in 2061. The population curve rises slowly through the 18th and 19th centuries, accelerates sharply in the mid-20th century, then flattens under the projection labeled "Projection (UN medium-fertility variant)." The annual growth rate line peaks at 2.3 percent in 1963, falls to 0.9 percent in 2023, and is projected to decline to negative 0.1 percent by 2100. Data source text in the footer reads: HYDE (2023); Gapminder (2022); UN WPP (2024). Footer also shows OurWorldInData.org with the tagline "Research and data to make progress against the world's largest problems" and a license note: Licensed under CC-BY by the author Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie and Veronika Samborska.

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Latest

Hunger levels have increased across Africa over the last decade

What do people die from in different countries?

Many countries are “leapfrogging” landlines and going straight to mobile phones

How much is the US spending on building data centers?

The global suicide rate has fallen since the 1990s, but the death toll is still high

Californians now travel nearly 10 million kilometers each month in driverless taxis

Brazil, India, Vietnam, and Russia hold large reserves of rare earth, but mine very little of them

China’s Great Leap Forward caused a dramatic spike in child deaths

Are Americans worried about AI taking their jobs?

How much revenue do governments collect, and where does it come from?

There are now nearly 800 million active mobile money accounts in the world

Estimates suggest that 45% of abortions globally are unsafe — but this varies widely across regions

Where are people being forced from their homes because of conflict or disaster?

Mental health care is scarce everywhere — but in poor countries, it barely exists

Explore updated data on how consumer prices have changed in the United States

Battery costs have declined by 99% in the last three decades, making electrified transport a reality

Explore updated data on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) around the world

Track the recovery of the ozone layer with updated data

The world gets more seafood from aquaculture than wild catch

We’ve refreshed key static visualizations on population growth over the long run

Our World in Data is free and accessible for everyone.

Hunger levels have increased across Africa over the last decade

What do people die from in different countries?

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Many countries are “leapfrogging” landlines and going straight to mobile phones

The global suicide rate has fallen since the 1990s, but the death toll is still high

Brazil, India, Vietnam, and Russia hold large reserves of rare earth, but mine very little of them

China’s Great Leap Forward caused a dramatic spike in child deaths

Estimates suggest that 45% of abortions globally are unsafe — but this varies widely across regions

Mental health care is scarce everywhere — but in poor countries, it barely exists

Battery costs have declined by 99% in the last three decades, making electrified transport a reality

The world gets more seafood from aquaculture than wild catch

Our World in Data is free and accessible for everyone.