NationMaster — Nothing But The Facts, Ma'am
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 09.22.05
If one of the oft touted ideals of the web is that it can put information at your fingertips, then get your pinkies poised. For NationMaster is a fact gatherers absolute delight. For example, who has the worlds heaviest ecological footprint? Mmmm. Maybe the United Arab Emirates built Ski Dubai, just so they didn’t lose the dubious honour of topping this list of 141 countries. It takes almost 16 hectares, per each resident of the UAE, to keep them in the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed. The USA comfortably holds second place, using a bit over 12 hectares. Australia is seventh at 8.5ha. Yet for all that material wealth, the US is only the twentieth most generous, when it comes to ...
... development assistance to less developed countries, providing $23.33 per American in aid, whereas Luxembourg heads this particular table offering $313.71 per citizen. America wins a gold medal topping the chart of the most municipal waste per person, with 760 kgs (1,676 lbs) each. Us Aussies did our best to beat the US, but could only scrounge up 690 kgs per head, to come in second for the silver. But for all its landmass, the US only scores a fortieth ranking in countries with the most amount of land area (per capita) under conservation protection. (New Zealand score best here). NationMaster is an amazing resource. It’s the brainchild of Luke Metcalfe, who wanted “To promote education and understanding about the world.” Go Luke. ::NationMaster (on Ecological Foorprints)
Good resource, yeah. It's particularly interesting when you get per capita comparisons, eg the country that gives the most aid doesn't give much as % of GDP or population.
US Americans are only 64th in lifespan, but I guess a lot of em make up for that with eternal joy afterwards in heaven.
I think rather than giving out gold and silver medals for municipal waste per capita, 1st place should get a disposable diaper with a golden turd in it, and 2nd should get scultpure made out of batteries that were thrown away (there's already silver in them!)
Anyway, I've spent many hours at this site, and its an immensely valuable resourse. One thing to note though is that it seems many statistics appear to be incomplete and some are user-contributed, so I'm not sure I would trust it for research (try to get at the referenced data for that), but does make for some great anectodal data.
I would be careful trusting NationMaster. Consider their behavior towards me and others, they do not act like a responsible business. Their abusive emails demonstrate this.