Data Insights
Bite-sized insights on how the world is changing, published every few days.
State CapacityJuly 30, 2025
A century ago, around half of today’s independent countries were European colonies
Just a century ago, many of today’s independent countries weren’t self-governing at all. They were colonies controlled by European countries from far away.
Modern European colonialism began in the 15th century, when Spain and Portugal established overseas empires. By the early 20th century, it had peaked: the United Kingdom and France dominated, and nearly 100 modern-day countries were under European control, mostly in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.
As the chart shows, this changed rapidly after World War II. A wave of decolonization spread across the world, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. Colonies became independent countries, formed their own governments, joined international institutions, and started having their own voice in global decisions.
The decline of colonialism marked one of the biggest political shifts in modern history, from external rule to national sovereignty.
Read more about colonization and state capacity on our dedicated page →
January 24, 2025
Papua New Guinea has more living languages than any other country
Papua New Guinea has 840 living languages — more than any other country.
A living language is one that is spoken by at least one person as their first language. The chart shows the ten countries with the most living languages as of 2024. This data is from the Ethnologue dataset produced by the Summer Institute of Linguistics International.
There are over 7,000 living languages globally, meaning that more than 10% of the world’s living languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea.
Papua New Guinea was initially settled by humans around 50,000 years ago, allowing a long time for languages to be established. Around 3,500 years ago, people speaking a different family of languages (Austronesian) arrived and settled in Papua New Guinea, bringing additional diversity to the country.
Unlike many nations, Papua New Guinea did not experience historical events such as the establishment of an early centralized authority, which often led to the dominance of a single language. Instead, its rugged mountainous terrain isolated communities, fostering the independent development of numerous languages.
Explore the number of living languages in other countries →
May 20, 2024
In the last 200 years, many countries have built institutions to collect statistics on their populations
Governments need accurate information about their populations to implement effective policies.
But historically, few countries collected basic statistics on their people, so they knew little about them.
The chart here shows that, over time, many countries have built such institutions.
Starting in the 19th century, they began conducting population censuses, creating civil registers, and establishing statistical agencies. In the later 20th century, they started setting up population registers and using register-based censuses.
Thanks to these efforts, these countries better understand where people live, what jobs they have, who was born, and who has died.
However, many countries still lack these institutions, which makes it challenging for them to direct projects and policies where they are most helpful.
Explore this data →
May 07, 2024
The rise of tax revenues in Southern Europe
Southern Europe demonstrates that countries can substantially increase the taxes they collect in a relatively brief period of time.
The chart shows that in 1980, tax revenues in Greece, Portugal, and Spain accounted for around 20% of their respective GDP, based on data from UNU-WIDER. This was slightly less than the United States’s 25% of GDP and much lower than Germany’s 36%.
Within a few decades, the three countries greatly increased their tax revenues. By 2021, they had almost caught up with Germany, with revenues nearly 40% of GDP. Even the 2007–2008 economic crisis only briefly interrupted their upward trend.
This shows that governments can increase their tax collection to expand public policies, even in countries where taxes were comparatively low in the past.
March 22, 2024
Colonialism meant that for centuries, many territories and people were ruled from elsewhere
Two hundred years ago, large parts of the world were ruled by a few European colonial powers, as the chart shows.
Since then, people in many countries have fought against colonial rule.
A first wave of countries gained independence in the 19th century, particularly in the Americas.
However, most countries did not gain independence until the middle of the 20th century.