Every value should have a paper trail.

Canonical population source

• Publisher
  United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division
• Dataset
  World Population Prospects 2024
• Release
  Rev.1 / Interim Update · 19 January 2026
• Coverage
  Estimates 1950–2023; Medium projections 2024–2100
• License
  CC BY 3.0 IGO

Open latest UN WPP page · Methods

Installation status

Checking…

Checking the locally generated population partitions.

Canonical national accounts source

• Publisher
  United Nations Statistics Division
• Dataset
  National Accounts Analysis of Main Aggregates (AMA)
• Active snapshot
  Source updated 28 January 2026
• Coverage
  1970–2024 across 250 country and aggregate geographies
• Identity
  UN M49 geography codes, semantic workbook roles, and immutable SHA-256 manifests

Official AMA portal · Official formulas

Open latest UNSD AMA page · Methods

Rev.1 overlay policy

Update files supersede corresponding original file families. Complete replacements are selected directly; partial files are joined using the full observation key. Togo changes and unchanged-location invariants are validated and recorded.

Fixed thematic scales

Population density, median age, total fertility rate, and crude death rate use published UN indicators and fixed thresholds across 1950–2100. The legend never reclassifies itself when the year changes, so color changes remain comparable over time.

Geography

Natural Earth Admin 0 Map Units v5.1.1 is simplified locally for the boundary map. Map Units keep WPP countries and areas geographically distinct where the Countries layer merges overseas areas into an administering country. Geometry joins use UN M49 or ISO3 codes, never display names, and processing requires all 237 locations to have reviewed anchors. The population cartogram continuously deforms one shared world topology to make country area proportional to each year's population, then samples it on a fixed global hex grid. Shared arcs retain adjacency and the fixed frame keeps year-to-year changes legible. Locations below grid resolution retain one visibility hex. Current boundaries are used for every year and are not historically exact.

The economy cartogram applies the same topology, fixed hex grid, stable code joins, adjacency rules, and minimum visibility treatment. Country area is proportional to nominal GDP at current U.S. dollars in each published AMA year from 1970 through 2024. Countries without a compatible observation retain a no-data visibility hex and are not assigned a neighboring value. UNSD publishes Tanzania as mainland (M49 835) and Zanzibar (836); the explorer sums those component levels into current Tanzania (834), then recalculates ratios and growth from the combined series. The aggregation is available from 1990, when both components begin.

The cartogram seed and implementation are adapted from the MIT-licensed Our World in Data cartograms project, based on the Dougenik-Chrisman-Niemeyer continuous-area method. The downloaded topology and license are retained with checksums.