Editorial & Corrections Policy

How Pages Are Produced

PlainCountries' country profiles, indicator rankings, topic pages, and comparison views are generated from documented public datasets: the World Bank's World Development Indicators, the WHO Global Health Observatory, ILO ILOSTAT, and OECD Health Statistics. We load each source into a structured database and render every page from that database. The figures you see — population, GDP, life expectancy, rankings, and year ranges — are read directly from those agencies' published numbers, not hand-typed and not estimated by us.

This is a data-publishing model: one template renders profiles for all 217 countries so that every country is covered consistently. We are transparent that these data pages are produced programmatically from the source datasets rather than written individually. The editorial work goes into the pipeline (how data is sourced, normalized, and computed), the methodology, and the written guides — not into hand-authoring hundreds of near-identical country pages, which would add no accuracy and invite inconsistency.

Sourcing Standards

• Primary sources only. Every figure traces to one of the four international agencies above. We do not republish second-hand aggregations or blogs.
• Attribution in context. Each data page names its dataset and the data year near the figures, and links to the methodology that explains how each indicator is defined.
• Derived values are labeled. Numbers we compute ourselves — world rankings, percentiles, and peer comparisons — are presented as our analysis of the source data, distinct from the agencies' published figures.
• No invented data. Where a value is unavailable for a country, the page shows “N/A” rather than filling the gap with an estimate, and we never carry stale values forward.
• Open licensing. The World Bank and WHO datasets are published under CC BY 4.0, so the underlying figures are free to cite with attribution.

Update Cadence

The World Bank refreshes the World Development Indicators on a rolling annual schedule; WHO, ILO, and OECD release on their own cycles. We refresh our database when new source releases are available and recompute rankings and trends. Between releases the figures are stable because the source itself does not change. The reference year for each indicator is shown on the page so you always know which vintage you are reading.

Corrections Process

If a figure on PlainCountries looks wrong, please tell us. Because our pages are generated from the source datasets, a genuine error almost always traces back to either the source data or our processing of it — so this is how we handle a report:

1. Report. Email us through the contact page with the page URL and the number that looks off.
2. Verify. We compare the figure against the originating agency's published data for that country and year.
3. Fix at the source. If the value is wrong on our side, we correct it in the database and pipeline that generate the page — not just on the single page — so every affected page is fixed at once. If the figure faithfully reflects the source data, we explain that and, where useful, add context.
4. Note it. Material corrections are reflected the next time the page rebuilds, with the data reference year shown so you can see which release a page is based on.

We aim to acknowledge data-error reports within a few business days.

Editorial Independence

PlainCountries is an independent publisher and is not affiliated with the World Bank, WHO, ILO, OECD, or any government. Our guides and analysis are not influenced by advertisers; advertising, where present, is clearly distinguishable from editorial content and never determines which countries or rankings we show. Rankings are computed mechanically from the source figures, so no country can pay to move up a list.

Appropriate Use

PlainCountries is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical, financial, investment, or policy advice. Health and disease indicators describe population-level statistics, not guidance for any individual. For decisions that depend on these figures, confirm the current values with the originating agency and consult a qualified professional. See our full disclaimer.