On each of our country profiles, we list some six standard statistics for that nation.
Below is a short explanation of those statistics. More data and deeper explanations of the statistics can be found on UNData.org, provided by the United Nations.
To provide a comparison, the statistics for Great Britain and Northern Ireland are shown to the right.
Life expectancy - technically life expectancy at birth, it is the average number of years of life at birth (age 0) according to the expected mortality rates by age estimated for the reference year and population, broken down by gender.
Population estimates: The total population of a country may comprise either all usual residents of the country (de jure population) or all persons present in the country (de facto population) at the time of a census.
GNI: Gross national income per capita estimates are the aggregate value of the balances of gross primary incomes for all sectors in the economy divided by the population. GNI is equal to GDP less taxes (less subsidies) on production and imports, compensation of employees and property income payable to the rest of the world plus the corresponding items receivable from the rest of the world. Thus GNI at market prices is the sum of gross primary incomes receivable by resident institutional units/sectors. In contrast to GDP, GNI is not a concept of value added, but a concept of income.
Infant mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) is the ratio of infant deaths (the deaths of children under one year of age) in a given year to the total number of live births in the same year. Unless otherwise noted, the rates are the five-year projected averages for the reference period 2005-2010.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic used to rank countries by level of "human development". The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing or an under-developed country, and also to measure the impact of economic policies on quality of life. It is given as a ranking (out of 169 countries, Norway being first), and a rating (either very high, high, medium or low development).
All data except the HDI from http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx
HDI data from http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/
All country data last updated: March 2012.