There are lots of government sites for looking up statistics: Census Bureau, CDC, CIA, to name a few for the USA, and WHOSIS or CIA for international; however, there aren’t many places that try to combine them easily for comparison and make a graphical respresentation of it to boot! A relatively new website called NationMaster attempts to do just that. The creater (Luke Metcalfe) is a self-described “stats geek” and “CIA Factbook Junkie” from Australia who found this dilemma frustrating. Hence he created this privately owned and operated solution.
The website gathers statistics from a variety of sources (CIA World Factbook, United Nations reports and surveys, US Census Bureau, UNESCO and more!) and presents the data in an easy-to-use graphical format. Although not completely authoritative, the easy user interface gets researchers quickly to informative data. This well-designed site, whose motto is “Where Stats Come Alive!” deserves a look. Where else can you easily find out that Norwegians are the biggest coffee drinkers or that Canada is the most immigrant friendly? If nothing else, you’ll be well-armed with interesting factoids to throw out as a conversation starter at your next social event. And maybe you’ll even get some serious research done too!
