Gapminder World 2006: Visualisation of World development data

Gapminder World 2006 is is an interesting free tool for visualising statistical data. It provides a very effective interface for dynamically representing relationships between variables showing trends over time. The Gapminder foundation believe that decision makers, politicians and educators need more accessible tools such as this to make use of existing global development statistics and to improve understanding about the complex society.

Unfortunately, using the tool with your own data is not yet possible, although Google recently acquired Gapminder's Trendalyzer software and development team so this may eventually be possible.

As it stands you can chart the following World Development Indicators on two axes and dynamically map changes over time - typically 1975 - 2006.

• CO2 emissions
• Child mortality
• Fertility rate
• Contraceptive use
• Economic growth
• Income per capita
• Internet use
• Life expectancy
• Military budget
• Number of girls c/f boys in school
• Phone users
• Physicians per head
• Population
• Urban population
• Women in workforce

The easiest way to see how it works is to view the one minute demo.

You can create your own charts, e.g. I've used the tool here to compare per capita CO2 emissions of various countries with similar income levels.

Hans Rosling, one of the founders, demonstrates at TED 2007 how global trends issues and relationships can be powefully presented.