About World Facts

World Facts turns trusted global data into clear, country-by-country answers about how the world actually lives. Each topic is a simple question — who has safe water? who can read? who has electricity? — answered with one interactive map you can explore in seconds.

We started with a single topic and are adding more over time. The aim is always the same: take a figure that's usually buried in a report, and make it something you can see and feel.

The topics

water_drop Clean waterAccess to safely managed drinking water. menu_book LiteracyShare of adults who can read and write. bolt ElectricityAccess to electricity at home. wifi InternetShare of people who use the internet. vaccines VaccinationChildhood immunisation coverage (DTP3).

Every topic has its own colour and its own little vessel that fills to a country's figure — a glass of water, a page of writing, a lightbulb, a phone screen, a syringe. A nearly-empty one tells the story as fast as any number.

How to read a map

Pick a topic, then click any country — or search by name. Countries are shaded from pale (low) to deep colour (high); grey means no reliable data. A panel opens with the headline figure, the filling vessel, key numbers (like how many people that leaves out), a chart of the trend over time, and the option to compare with a second country.

The global average shown on each topic is computed live from that dataset — population-weighted across the countries that report the measure — not copied from a headline elsewhere.

Our approach

Trusted sources only. Every figure comes from an official body — the WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank, UNESCO or the ITU — standardised into clean series by Our World in Data.
Current, not stale. We use each country's most recent reliable value and drop outdated ones, so a map reflects the world as it is now.
Honest about limits. Where a country isn't measured, it's shown as “no data”, not guessed. Estimated figures are labelled as estimates.

Data & sources

WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP)Safe drinking water. Also, via WUENIC, childhood vaccination coverage.

UNESCO Institute for StatisticsAdult literacy rates.

World BankAccess to electricity, and the population figures used across every topic.

International Telecommunication Union (ITU)Individuals using the internet.

Our World in DataCompiles and standardises all of the above into clean, machine-readable series.

World Facts is an independent project and is not affiliated with the WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank, UNESCO, the ITU, or Our World in Data. Map shapes © Natural Earth.