Human Development Over Time: Maps from the UN

The site for the UN's Human Development Report has maps that show the (somewhat) shifting geography of development over the past few decades. Here are maps of HDI - broken into the conceptually nebulous but statistically precise categories of "low," "medium" and "high" development - for three selected years:





The main action seems to have been in Latin America, where several countries have gone from medium (.500-.800 on the HDI scale) to high (.800+), and in South Asia, where the entire Subcontinent has jumped the bar from low (<.500) to medium development.

But of course you notice how broad these categories are: high devlopment countries as of 2006 include everything from Ecuador to Denmark; middle income countries include both Thailand and Papua New Guinea. But you can click on countries to get a ton of details on demographics, health, education, and economics. You can also see HDI numbers for every hald-decade since 1975; China, for instance, has gone from .530 in 1975 to .777 in 2005.