Freedom in the World, 2006-2009

Every year, Freedom House publishes its 'Freedom in the World' report which assesses the political rights and civil liberties of over 190 countries and related and disputed territories. The assessments are scored on a scale of 1 to 7, 1 indicating the highest degree of freedom and 7 the least amount of freedom. Using OpenHeatMap and the Freedom in the World reports, I created a visualization that depicts the score of the countries for each from 2006 to 2009.

Freedom House Ranking Classification:

  

Designation                    Score

Free:                               1 – 2.5

Partly Free:                    3.0 – 5.0

Not Free:                        5.5 – 7.0

Click on the play button to see the changes from 2006 to 2009; if you wish to view ratings for a specific year, press pause and explore.

Number of Physicians For Every 10,000 Residents - 2009

Using the World Health Statistics 2010 published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and OpenHeatMap, the interactive map below shows the number of available physicians in almost every country for every 10,000 of its residents (simple place your mouse pointer on the country you desire and the name of the country and number of physicians will show). 

Some interesting numbers:

-        Niue, an island nation in the South Pacific with an estimated population of less than 1,500 (CIA World Factbook), has a grand total of FOUR physicians.

-        China has 1,862,630 for its billion plus population whereas in comparison, India, with over a billion of its own, has only 643,520 physicians.

-        Cuba, with 64 physicians for every 10,000, ranks the highest.

Distribution of Physicians According to WHO Regions:

Region	Total Number of Physicians	Physicians Per 10,000 Population
African Region	174,510	2
Region of the Americas	1,889,643	23
South-East Asia Region	843,571	5
European Region	2,877,344	33
Eastern Mediterranean Region	549,009	10
Western Pacific Region	2,413,713	14

Distribution of Physicians According to Income Groups:

Income Group	Total Number of Physicians	Physicians Per 10,000 Population
Low income	332,034	4
Lower middle income	3,464,085	10
Upper middle income	2,126,466	24
High income	2,825,205	28

NOTE:

The following countries were not included due to a lack of information: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Monaco, Peru, St. Lucia, and San Marino.

The following countries (with 0.5 physicians per 10,000 population on the map) actually have less than 0.5 physicians. The map did not recognize the <0.5 value: Bhutan, Burundi, Chad, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Tanzania. 

March 2011 Unemployment Rates in the U.S.

Using the Local Area Unemployment Statistics provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and OpenHeatMap, I created a visualization that shows the unemployment rates in March 2011 for all states.

Unfortunately, things aren't looking too good for many states.

Note: The national unemployment rate is 8.8%.

U.S. Trade Deficit With China

There has been much talk in the media about the widening, and ever increasing U.S. trade deficit with China. A Guardian article recently observed that the "gap between US imports from China and what it sold to the country rose to $273.1bn  last year, the largest trade imbalance the US has ever recorded with a single country." Investopedia defines trade deficit as an "economic measure of a negative balance of trade in which a country's imports exceeds its exports. A trade deficit represents an outflow of domestic currency to foreign markets." To put it simply, a country buys more goods from a country than it sells to that particular country.

Using Tableau Public and data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the visualization below explores the U.S.-China trade imbalance from 1990 to 2010. You can interact with the data by hovering your mouse pointer over the charts, selecting and de-selecting the years and months in the table on the right, and by downloading the viz.

NOTE: All figures below are in millions of U.S. Dollars.

Powered by Tableau