Our Mission

We believe development data should be accessible to everyone, students, researchers, journalists, policymakers, and everyday citizens who want to understand how countries compare on health, education, economics, and environmental measures. That belief is why we built PlainCountries.

International organizations like the World Bank and WHO publish enormous datasets, but navigating their portals requires expertise in data formats, API endpoints, and indicator codebooks. Our mission is to bridge that gap: we take complex, multi-source development indicators and present them in a clean, searchable, and comparable format, no account needed, no paywalls, no data science background required.

PlainCountries exists because understanding global development should not be gated behind technical skill. Whether you are writing a school report, evaluating foreign investment risk, or simply curious about how your country compares, the data should be one search away.

Data Sources

All data on PlainCountries comes from authoritative international organizations. We do not use third-party estimates, user-submitted data, or proprietary models. Every number on this site is traceable to an official source:

• World Bank Open Data - The World Bank provides free and open access to global development data covering 217 countries and territories. We use 48 indicators across 8 topic areas including demographics, economics, education, environment, infrastructure, health, governance, and social development.
  data.worldbank.org
• WHO Global Health Observatory (GHO) - The World Health Organization publishes health-related statistics for all member states through the Global Health Observatory. We use 15 indicators covering life expectancy, mortality rates, disease burden by cause, and health system access.
  who.int/data/gho
• OECD Statistics - The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development provides comparative data for 38 member countries on economic performance, labor markets, and social outcomes. We use 14 OECD indicators for countries where this data is available.
  stats.oecd.org
• ILO (International Labour Organization) - Labor force participation, unemployment rates, and employment-to-population ratios are sourced from ILO statistical databases where available.
  ilostat.ilo.org

All sources license their data under open terms. World Bank and OECD data are published under CC BY 4.0. WHO GHO data is made freely available for public use under WHO's open data policy.

Methodology

Our approach to data processing prioritizes fidelity to the original source. We do not interpolate, extrapolate, adjust, or modify the original data values in any way. Here is how we process the data:

• Collection - Data is collected from official World Bank, WHO, OECD, and ILO APIs using their documented endpoints. We fetch indicator values for all available countries and years.
• Normalization - Country names and ISO codes are standardized across all four sources so that indicators from different organizations can be displayed on a single country profile page.
• Coverage - We track 45+ development indicators across 7 major topic areas, covering 217 countries and territories. Time series data spans 2000 to 2024, with the latest available year varying by indicator and country.
• Rankings - Global rankings are pre-computed based on the most recent available data point for each country on each indicator. If a country has no data for an indicator, it is excluded from that ranking rather than assigned a zero.
• Comparisons - Country comparison pages show the most recent value per indicator for both countries side by side, along with trend data where available. We generate 861 unique country comparison pairs.
• Disease burden - WHO disease burden data covers 15 leading causes of death and disability globally, including cardiovascular diseases, respiratory conditions, cancers, and infectious diseases.
• Mineral production - Production data for 20 minerals is included where available, sourced from international geological surveys.

Data Currency and Update Schedule

Our database reflects data vintages through 2024 for most World Bank indicators and 2023 for WHO health indicators, depending on each organization's release cycle. We update our database periodically as new annual releases become available from each source.

Due to the nature of international statistics, some indicators lag by 1-3 years. GDP per capita may have 2023 data available while maternal mortality ratios may only have 2020 data. We always display the data year alongside each value so you know exactly what you are looking at, no guesswork about whether a number is current.

OECD data is typically updated semi-annually. WHO GHO data follows WHO's annual publication calendar. World Bank data follows the World Development Indicators annual release, usually in the spring.

Editorial Independence

Content on PlainCountries is compiled by our editorial team. Raw data from HUD, Census, BLS, and related housing/demographic agencies is transformed into readable profiles by our continuous editorial pipeline, validated against the source before publication. The PlainCountries editorial team, is responsible for editorial standards, methodology, and corrections.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from landlords, cities, governments, or any covered entity. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense, advertisers do not influence which entities we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Limitations and Caveats

PlainCountries presents data from international organizations as faithfully as possible, but users should be aware of the following limitations:

• Reporting gaps - Not all countries report all indicators every year. Some nations have sparse data, particularly for health and environmental metrics. Where data is unavailable, we show "Data not available" rather than estimates or zeros.
• Methodological differences - Different countries may use different methodologies to collect the same indicator (e.g., how unemployment is defined varies). The World Bank and WHO harmonize where possible, but comparisons across countries should be interpreted with care.
• Publication lag - International statistics often lag 1-3 years behind the current date. The "latest data" for many countries reflects conditions from prior years, not today.
• Data revisions - Source organizations periodically revise historical data. Our database reflects the version available at the time of our most recent refresh and may differ from the latest revision on the source website.
• No editorial interpretation - We present numbers without editorial judgment. A higher or lower ranking does not inherently mean "better" or "worse" - context matters.
• Not investment or policy advice - This data is for general reference and educational purposes. It should not be used as the sole basis for investment decisions, policy recommendations, or academic research without consulting the primary sources.

PlainCountries is a data intelligence company that builds free, public-interest data portals from government and international organization datasets. Our portals transform raw, complex datasets into searchable, well-organized pages that answer real questions, no paywalls, no accounts required.

Other portals in the PlainCountries include:

• PlainVisa - H-1B visa and immigration data
• PlainRelocate - Relocation intelligence across 7 federal databases
• PlainCost - US cost of living data
• PlainClimate - US climate normals from NOAA
• PlainCompare - Cross-portal city comparison

Editorial Standards

PlainCountries combines authoritative data ingestion (World Bank Open Data, WHO GHO, OECD Statistics) with editorial drafting by the PlainCountries team. Indicator extracts, ranking summaries, and country-profile narrative passages are drafted from the underlying source data and reviewed for factual accuracy against the underlying tables before publication. We never publish unverified figures: every numeric claim is traceable to a record in our dataset, which itself is populated only from the listed authoritative sources.

We disclose this approach in the spirit of Google's E-E-A-T guidelines and the IFCN Code of Principles. AI is used as a drafting and summarization aid; editorial judgment, source verification, and final publication decisions remain human. Errors discovered after publication are corrected promptly with a dated change note on the affected page.

For methodology details, see our methodology page. To report a data issue, use the contact details below.

Contact

Have a question, found a data error, or want to provide feedback? Reach us at hello@plaincountries.com or visit our contact page. We read every message and aim to respond within 48 hours.