Graph: Africa – Population and GDP

This graph shows the GDP and population of the African countries, as well as the GDP per capita (which is the gradient of each data point).

Data Source: World Bank

The chart might be useful in terms of thinking about which African countries are doing well economically to invest in – High GDP implies a strong economy; High Population implies a potential large domestic market; High GDP per capita implies a high spending power of the population (assuming the income gap is not too high, which may not be the case).

On these counts, South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria, Angola and Morocco could be potential countries for investors to take another look at. Of course, there is the issue of corporate governance or political stability, which would be looked at in a subsequent post.

South Africa’s 2010 GDP (US$364bn) places it as the top African country with the highest GDP, but the 28^th country in the world. In terms of GDP per capita, South Africa (US$7,275) is ranked 66^th in the world. As a comparison, the 2010 GDP per capita for various countries are: US: US$47,199; France: US$39,640; Malaysia: US$8,373; China: US$4,428.

South Africa is not doing too badly on these counts.

Data Source: World Bank; Graph: Generated by me

Map: The Freedom of Countries

This map shows the freedom in the world – the freedom ratings by country in 2011. There is a large cluster of countries in the Middle East / North Africa, Russia / Central Asia, China and Indo-China where the countries are rated “not free”. Note that these are ratings by Freedom House on political rights and civil liberties for the year 2011, which take into account the events of the Arab Spring.

Data Source: Freedom House; Generated with this

If you compare this with the Christian map and the Muslim map, you can see that many of the majority-Christian nations are rated “free”, while many of the Muslim (the Middle East / North Africa) countries are rated “not free”. It may be a coincidence – or due to the lack of freedom in these countries, the population does not profess any other religion other than the official one. Of course, ratings (as well as professions of religion) have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Find out how to make maps similar to the one above.

Data Source: Freedom House; Map: Generated by me

Map: Christian Population in the World

This map shows the number of Christians as a percentage of the total population in each country. As you can see, the countries with large percentage of Christians are in Europe, North America, South America and sub-Saharan Africa. Again, the map shows the number of Christians as a percentage of the total population in each country, not the number of Christians in each country.

Data Source: Pew Research Center; Generated with this

There is a large swath of countries in the Middle East / North Africa, South Asia, North Asia and Southeast Asia, where the percentage of Christians is low. The populations of these countries are mainly from other religions, such as Islam (Middle East / North Africa, Indonesia), Hinduism (India) or Buddhism (Japan, maybe China). The contrast with the countries with high percentage of Muslims can be seen if you refer to the Muslim map of the world.

Find out how to make maps similar to the one above.

Data Source: Pew Research Center; Map: Generated by me

Map: Muslim Population in the World

This map shows the number of Muslims as a percentage of the total population in each country. As you can see, there is a large concentration of countries in the Middle East / North Africa / Central Asia belt where the country percentage of Muslims is highest (usually more than 95%). The other large cluster is in the Southeast Asia region, including Indonesia and Malaysia.

Data Source: Pew Research Center; Generated with this

The map shows the number of Muslims as a percentage of the total population in each country, not the number of Muslims in each country. For example, there is a large population of Muslims in China, but this is small compared to the total population in China. See also the Christian map and the Freedom map.

Find out how to make maps similar to the one above. 

Data Source: Pew Research Center; Map: Generated by me

Map: Crime Statistics - Homicide Rates

This map shows the homicide rates in the world, by country. The data is from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, where intentional homicide is defined as “unlawful death purposefully inflicted on a person by another person”. It should be the technical term for what we know as murder.

Data Source: UN Office on Drugs and Crime

From the map, we can see that the countries with the highest homicide rates are those from Africa (except the Northern parts) and some countries of Latin America (Brazil, Mexico). The countries with the lowest homicide rates are Canada, most parts of Europe, North Africa (surprisingly), Australia, New Zealand, China (perhaps because of the large population and stringent laws) and Japan. Of course, there are many small countries that we cannot see on the map that may have much worse or better homicide rates.

Find out how to make maps similar to the one above. 

Data Source: UNODC; Map: Generated by me

Tip: How To Include Sitemap Gadget on Your Blog

How can you include a sitemap gadget (listing all your posts by date) on your Blogger blog? See for example the sitemap gadget on the right side of this blog, though this isn't exactly the same as the one you will get from the steps below.

1) Go to the website: http://itde.vccs.edu/rss2js/build.php

2) Enter the fields required as follows:


URL Enter the web address of the RSS Feed
http://graphtheworld.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?start-index=1&max-results=999
[Replace the blog name with your own blog name. This gives up to 1000 results]


Number of items to display. Enter the number of items to be displayed (enter 0 to show all available)
[Enter desired number, e.g. 999. Do not leave it as "0" - it doesn't work.]

Enter other fields, as required.

3) Click "Preview". If the feed of the sitemap comes up, then click on "Generate Javascript".

4) If you need specific styles, you can also click on the style tool to customize.

5) Copy and paste Javascript into the a Html/Javascript gadget on your blogger.

That's all! It's quite simple, isn't it?

About GraphTheWorld

GraphTheWorld is an attempt to see or show the world and its phenomenon through graphs, maps, charts, infographics – basically anything visual.