Sources and methodology

Every statistical series has a reference date and a defined coverage. Publication and retrieval dates do not change the year an observation describes.

Population

Our country factsheets use the medium-variant projection for 1 July 2026 from UN World Population Prospects 2024, revision 1, retrieved 24 September 2026. These are model-based projections, not census counts. National statistical offices can publish different figures because of their methods, coverage and reference dates.

The global total is 8,300,678,395. Summing our 196 country profiles gives 8,282,788,789; the difference reflects areas outside our country directory. The homepage uses the global total. Continent cards sum the profiles in each browsing region and are not the UN regional totals.

GDP and GDP per capita

We use 2024 observations from the World Bank, retrieved 2026-09-27: GDP in current US dollars and GDP per capita in current US dollars. Both are nominal measures, not adjusted for purchasing power.

187 of our 196 country profiles have a GDP observation for this year. Missing observations are omitted from rankings and shown as “—” in comparisons; they do not mean zero. GDP per capita comes directly from the source's matching-year series, rather than dividing older GDP by our 2026 population projection. GDP measures annual output, not personal wealth.

Tourism

The tourism comparison uses the 2024 column of OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2026, Table 1.2, retrieved 2026-09-27. It covers the OECD and partner countries in that table, not all countries worldwide. Rankings describe only the included observations.

Tourists exclude same-day visitors. Visitor counts include them and appear in a separate table. Some countries report arrivals at accommodation establishments rather than at borders; these are labelled in the table. Repeat trips count as repeat arrivals, not unique people. France's value is the estimate in Table 1.2; the report's narrative cites a different UN Tourism estimate, so we retain the table's consistent series.

Country coverage and geography

Our directory covers 193 UN member states, the Holy See (Vatican City), Palestine and Taiwan. These 196 profiles are a browsing convention, not a statement that all have identical international recognition. The five browsing regions combine North and South America as the Americas; Antarctica has no country profiles. Transcontinental countries are assigned to one region for navigation.

Maps use Natural Earth boundaries and credited Wikimedia Commons maps. Interactive maps request OpenStreetMap tiles. Boundary detail and political status can differ between datasets; the country finder is a geographic reference, not a determination of legal jurisdiction.

Article reviews and other facts

Article sources and review notes identify the claims checked and the date of that check. A review note does not certify all historical or descriptive prose. Undated legacy HDI values are marked as having an unverified year and should not be used for current-year comparisons. Other editorial facts without a cited reference date should be checked with an authoritative source before relying on them.

If you find an error, send a correction with the page URL and a source. We update the affected fact and its review note rather than automatically refreshing dates across the site.