Categories
PlainCountries organises country-level data by category so you can navigate by subject rather than by country. Pick a development topic, a disease category, or a mineral class to jump into the relevant data slice. Every category links to full country rankings with Source: World Bank, Source: WHO, Source: ILO, or Source: USGS attribution.
Development Topics
8 thematic groupings covering demographics, economy, health, education, environment, infrastructure, social indicators, and labour statistics. Source: World Bank World Development Indicators and Source: WHO Global Health Observatory.
👥 Demographics
Indicators and rankings in the Demographics area.
💰 Economy
Indicators and rankings in the Economy area.
📚 Education
Indicators and rankings in the Education area.
🌍 Environment
Indicators and rankings in the Environment area.
🏥 Health
Indicators and rankings in the Health area.
🏗️ Infrastructure
Indicators and rankings in the Infrastructure area.
💼 Labor & Wages
Indicators and rankings in the Labor & Wages area.
⚖️ Social
Indicators and rankings in the Social area.
Disease Categories
WHO classifies global causes of death into three broad categories: non-communicable diseases (like heart disease and cancer), communicable diseases (infectious and parasitic), and injuries (road traffic, falls, violence). Source: WHO Global Burden of Disease.
Mineral Categories
USGS groups mineral commodities by economic and strategic function: critical minerals (rare earths, lithium, cobalt), precious metals (gold, silver, platinum), base metals (copper, lead, zinc), industrial minerals, and energy minerals. Source: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2024.
Category Methodology
Topic categories follow the World Bank World Development Indicators thematic groupings, extended with an ILO-sourced Labour & Wages topic. Each topic contains between 3 and 10 indicators chosen for coverage (most countries report) and comparability (consistent definitions across countries). Source: World Bank WDI metadata.
Disease categories use WHO's standard Global Burden of Disease classification: communicable, non-communicable, and injury. Cause-specific mortality is age-standardised where WHO publishes the adjusted series, which removes the effect of population age structure when comparing countries with very different demographics. Source: WHO Global Health Observatory cause-of-death metadata.
Mineral categories follow USGS's economic-function grouping in the annual Mineral Commodity Summaries. "Critical" corresponds to the U.S. Department of the Interior critical minerals list, which is reviewed every three years and reflects strategic supply-chain priorities. Production shares are USGS estimates for data year 2023 and may be revised in the 2025 release. Source: USGS National Minerals Information Center.
For per-indicator and per-source vintage notes, see the full methodology page.