It’s a Statistical Universe In My Pocket by Pedro F Marcelino

Every year, cashing on a stats-obsessed world, The Economist publishes the Pocket World in Figures, a small booklet that every pundit-wanna-be can use as a favourite quoting source: China has the largest population; Niger has the fastest growing; etc. As usual, a note is made as to how unreliable statistics are, yada yada, how countries, say, like the US and Burkina Faso, collect data with… huh… let’s call them “different methods”, blah blah, how a limit must be set somewhere, and so only countries with more than 1 m. inhabitants or over 1 bn. US dollars GDP are considered. 182 of them. I am hardly the original creature that draws attentions to it, but here goes nothing: this is a highly questionable method. While The Economist‘s 2005 edition choses to open valid exceptions for Hong Kong and Macau – to name two – including them as statistical units albeit the fact that they are not actual countries, the above criteria leave behind places like the Cape Verde Republic and the Seychelles, both pointed out as the most successful nations in Africa for a long time. It leaves behind a score of Caribbean states, while including the figidy Cayman Islands or the very important Channel Islands. It includes Somalia and the Central African Republic, that surely supplied trustworthy statistic material, leaving behind Liechtenstein, Monaco or San Marino, all too insignificant to be considered and certainly with very unreliable institutions (Macau, oddly enough, is never too small).

The choices denote a sadly all too typical tendency to ignore anything that looks expendable, something Portuguese academic Políbio Valente once named “expendable States”. It denotes an utter, albeit polished, disrespect for any minor cultural unit struggling for its own identity in this ever flatter world. It is the selection of the big and powerful – at times uninformed and ridiculous, at times ethnocentric and revolting. Other than the ones already mentioned, were also missing: Saint Kitts & Nevis, Sao Tome and Principe, East Timor, Nauru, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Samoa, Djibouti, Belize, West Sahara – only those detected without an atlas.

Nonetheless, it always looks smart when a blogger drops a few interesting numbers in an article. Hence the decision to make this a tribute to statistics, by drawing your attention to some numeric oddities of 2005. Let the percentages begin.

Japan is the oldest country in the world. Over 50% of its population is older than 41.3 years. But in 2025, says the book, Italy will have taken its place, ranking first with an average of 50.5 years (as Italian girls search la dolce vita, not the dolce fare babies). In fact, the top 25 ranking is an European, all-white exclusive. My own country, Portugal, will be no. 15 in 2025, at 45.8 (which, I guess, includes me). All the youngest populations live in African states. Not only that, they also make the fastest growing countries. All but a small but resilient archipelago that fights on: the Cayman Islands. Could this be all babies, or would it have more to do with the immigration of the rich and beautiful?

The 50 biggest cities in the world all have more than 4 m. inhabitants. Most of them are in developing countries, many in China, Brazil and India. It is not worth mentioning which ones are the fastest growing cities, as most are virtually unknown. Well, Oporto is in, representing the developed countries with an astonishing 11.5% rate, ranking 28. Some countries show a bigger tendency to accumulate population in urban areas. There are the city-states like Singapore or Hong Kong, but also unexpected conurbations like Panama City (41% of the total population), Lisbon (40%), Yerevan (37.5%), Tel Aviv (32.8%) or Athens (29.4%). In Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Hong Kong and Singapore everyone lives in cities. That is one bizarre concept. Even scarier, all of these have well over 90% of urban residents: Guadeloupe, Macau, Belgium, Kuwait, Martinique, Qatar, Iceland, Bahrain, Andorra, Uruguay and Luxembourg. I wonder how do children learn about cows and corn and stars in those places.

The best cities to live in the world are measured against New York, of all places (=100). Oddly enough, they are all better: Zurich and Geneva, Vancouver, Vienna (all 106), Auckland, Bern, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Sydney (all 105), Amsterdam and Munich (both 104). For the record, here is the list of places not to live in: Baghdad, Bangui, Brazzaville, Pointe Noire, Khartoum, Sana’a, Ougadougou, Nouakchott, N’djamena, Luanda, Niamey, Antananarivo.

It is no novelty that Americans have a big purchasing power. The value, however, is not measured having in mind what one’s dollars buy while traveling, rather what your kwanzas buy in your corner store. Thus, Luxembourguese are the richest in the world, followed by Norwegian and American. Bermuda and Cayman Islands come next (surprise, surprise), and the top 10 includes Denmark, Ireland, Iceland, and Austria and Canada ex-aequo. Then come the oddities: Greenland is no. 34 (but what can you buy?), Brunei no. 39, Bahrain no. 48, and Equatorial Guinea is no. 70. That just blows me off. Turn into the quality of life page (human development index), however, and the alignment changes. Trinidad makes it to the top, like Belarus (hello??) and Lybia, as the only African country on the list (ahead of Cape Verde and the Seychelles, that would not be there anyway, as they were not worthy of the book). Rwanda closes the list, along with 20 other African nations.

Looking at economic growth, it is striking to find out where the Equatorial Guinean purchasing power came from: the country had the 4th biggest service growth in the last decade (after Bosnia, Georgia and Albania, all beacons of service quality in the world). For the matter, the top 10 still includes Ethiopia, Myanmar and Uganda. In short: if a country had virtually zero service and gets 100 new outlets, that is an increase of 1000%. Now do your maths.

In what regards foreign aid recipients, it is quite interesting to notice China in the 5th position, and even a rather proud country like Brazil in the top 50. Most recipients, though, are in Africa. China is actually one of the biggest donors to African nations as well, and it has been so for a few decades now. However, the Government does not disclose numbers, which raises the question: is it aid, or a poisoned present? The biggest Embassy in Cape Verde, for the matter, is not Portuguese, Brazilian or even American. It is – and by far – Chinese.

There is a funny group of charts concerning transport. Macau has the densest road network in the world, followed by Malta and Bahrain (!). Portugal comes 38, but it is no. 18 in the most used roads. The above mentioned countries are not on that list. The most nightmarish places to drive, by the way, are Hong Kong, the Emirates and Germany, where the number of cars largely outnumbers the driving areas… even if people have more cars in Lebanon, New Zealand, Brunei and Luxembourg than anywhere else (China, for instance… which proves that they’re not buying cars with the donated money). Stay off the roads in Rwanda, South Korea, Costa Rica, Kenya, India and even Portugal – where the most accidents happen. Above all, remember never to drive in Malawi, where more people die or are injured than anywhere in the world, in a proportion of 20:1 to the second on the list (India).

I guess that partially explains why are not India or Malawi on the life expectancy top places. Instead, we find Andorra, followed by Japan, Sweden, Hong Kong, Iceland and… the Cayman Islands (what miracle fell on the Cayman?). Could it be the number of telephones (84.9% of the population have one)? People in the Cayman phone more than anyone else, while Danish hear more music, Swiss are more on line, and Taiwanese spend a lot of time on their mobiles. Ukrainian teens watch more TV (over 20 hours a week, which makes me wonder when do they sleep or get some fresh air), Israeli drink more soft drinks and Americans are more obese. Greek kids are more on line than any others… followed by the Greenlandese! Maltese kids are always drunk, Canadian kids are always doped.

Speaking of drinks: Czech, the inventors of beer, have it aplenty, followed by other notorious drunks, the Irish and the German, and most western European countries – either beer is luxury or snobbery. The US come 11, and Canada comes 20 (no doubt, because beer is harder to buy than across the border). Wine, however, changes the ranks: Luxembourguese, French, Italian, Portuguese and Swiss give themselves to the pleasures of Bacchus by far more than others. With the exception of Uruguay, Australia and New Zealand, all the top drinkers are European. In terms of gross quantities, it is fair to assume that Luxembourguese are drunk quite often, as are Hungarian and Czech. Greek smoke more than anyone, and Japanese are not far behind (although they die later than others!).

Crime, in the form of serious assaults, is adrift in strange places: Australia (the sun?), Sweden (the snow?) and South Africa (bling bling?). In spite of that, only South Africa ranks the top 21 countries in number of prisoners (8th in the world) or even percentually (11th). The US have more prisoners, and in a bigger proportion than any other country: 701 per 100.000 people, against the 584 of Russia, 554 of Belarus… and 532 of Bermuda, 522 of Virgin Islands and 501 of Cayman Islands (it looks like not all is shiny in the kingdom of sun and sea).

Scandinavia and Canada are the most environmentally sustainable places, and even Costa Rica (9), Panama (17) and Brazil (20) make the cut. On the other end, Kuwait and the Emirates are an environmental time bomb, as are North Korea, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Haiti and Ukraine. The healthiest cities in the world are Calgary, Honolulu, Helsinki, Ottawa, Minneapolis, Oslo and Stockholm.

Now, if the Cayman are not healthier, and if the risk of going to jail is higher, why in the world are so many people going there? Laundry? (Pun intended).