How people rate their own lives. Each person picks a step on a ladder from 0 (worst possible life) to 10 (best possible life). The country score is the average.

who publishes it

Gallup World Poll · World Happiness Report. Gallup is a global polling organisation that surveys around 1,000 people per country each year. The World Happiness Report, published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford with the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, turns those answers into country rankings.

how it is measured

Respondents are asked the Cantril ladder question: imagine a ladder where 0 is the worst possible life and 10 the best possible life — which step are you on today? The country score is the average answer, usually smoothed over three years of surveys.

The number of years a newborn can expect to live in good health — not just alive, but free of major illness or disability. Higher means longer, healthier lives.

who publishes it

World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO is the United Nations agency responsible for international public health. Its Global Health Observatory publishes internationally comparable health statistics.

how it is measured

Healthy life expectancy (HALE) combines death rates with survey and registry data on illness and disability, estimating how many years a newborn can expect to live in full health rather than simply alive.

note: Latest data is from 2021. Major health shifts since then (e.g. post-COVID recovery) may not be reflected.

Age-standardized deaths from self-harm per 100,000 people per year. This provides a population-level measure related to mental health. Lower values represent fewer recorded deaths.

who publishes it

World Health Organization (WHO). Same WHO Global Health Observatory database, drawing on national civil registration and cause-of-death reporting systems.

how it is measured

Deaths recorded as intentional self-harm, divided by population and age-standardised to account for differences in population age structures. Reporting quality varies between countries.

Intentional homicides per 100,000 people per year, reported by national authorities to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Lower values represent fewer recorded homicides.

who publishes it

UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). UNODC is the UN body tracking crime, drugs and criminal justice worldwide. It maintains the global homicide statistics database built from national police and health records.

how it is measured

Counts of intentional homicide reported by national authorities, expressed per 100,000 people. Where police and health figures disagree, UNODC applies a consistent selection rule.

How evenly income is shared. 0 would mean everyone earns the same; 100 would mean one person earns everything. Lower numbers mean a more equal society.

who publishes it

World Bank · Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP). PIP is the World Bank's global database of household income and consumption surveys, the foundation for international poverty and inequality measurement.

how it is measured

The Gini index is calculated from household surveys: 0 would mean everyone earns the same, 100 that one person earns everything. Surveys are not run every year, so coverage is patchy for many countries.

Country percentile rank (0–100) for political stability and the absence of violence or terrorism, from the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators — used here as an open-data proxy for the Global Peace Index. Higher means more peaceful.

who publishes it

World Bank · Worldwide Governance Indicators. The Worldwide Governance Indicators project aggregates dozens of surveys, expert assessments and risk ratings from think tanks, NGOs and commercial providers into comparable governance scores.

how it is measured

The political stability and absence of violence measure blends those sources into a percentile rank from 0 to 100. Used here as an open-data stand-in for the proprietary Global Peace Index, so it reflects violence and terrorism risk but not militarisation.

note: This is an open-data proxy (World Bank political-stability percentile), not the proprietary Global Peace Index. It captures violence and terrorism absence, but not militarisation or societal safety.

Percentile rank (0–100) for control of corruption — an estimate of how effectively public power is prevented from being used for private gain. Higher values indicate stronger control in this measure.

who publishes it

World Bank · Worldwide Governance Indicators. Same WGI project, drawing on business surveys, citizen surveys and expert ratings of institutional integrity.

how it is measured

Control of corruption measures how well a country curbs the use of public office for private gain, from petty bribery to elite capture, expressed as a percentile rank from 0 to 100.

Tonnes of CO₂ emitted per person per year. This measures territorial emissions relative to population; lower values represent fewer emissions per person.

who publishes it

Global Carbon Project · Global Carbon Budget. The Global Carbon Project is an international research consortium of climate scientists that publishes the annual Global Carbon Budget dataset.

how it is measured

Emissions from fossil fuels and industry, estimated from energy statistics and cement production, divided by population. Territorial emissions: they count what is emitted inside a country, not what is emitted abroad to make its imports.

Average economic output per person, adjusted for purchasing power so a dollar buys a comparable basket of goods across countries. It is commonly used as a proxy for material living standards.

who publishes it

World Bank. The World Bank compiles national accounts data submitted by statistical offices around the world and publishes it in its World Development Indicators database.

how it is measured

Total economic output divided by population, converted using purchasing power parity so that a dollar buys a comparable basket of goods in every country, and held in constant prices so inflation does not distort trends.