200 Countries 200 Years

1 .What is this graph showing basically?

2. What do the two axes represent?

3. What does the size of the country bubble show?

4. What does the colour of the bubble show?

5. Which countries are doing better? Which a re doing worse?

6. True or false? - the graph shows that in general the higher the income of the population is, the better its health is.

Hans Rosling's famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport's commentator's style to reveal the story of the world's past, present and future development. Now he explores stats in a way he has never done before - using augmented reality animation. In this spectacular section of 'The Joy of Stats' he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes. Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine.

Watch:

200 Countries 200 Years


Language Focus

True or false?

1. In 1810, the average life expectancy in the UK was below 40 years old.

2. The Industrial Revolution caused life expectancy to fall

3. The Great Depression caused life expectancy to drop dramatically

4. After World War One former colonies gained independence.

5. When former colonies gained independence their life expectancy rose.

6. Global life expectancy has been flat since World War Two.

7. In the future life expectancy is expected to fall. 

200 Countries 200 years                                                And     but     here     now 

Visualization is right at the heart of my own work too. I teach Global Health, and I know to have / having the data is not enough. I have to show / tell  it in ways people both enjoy and understand. ____ I'm going to try something I've never done again / before, animating the data in real space, with a bit of technical assistance from the crew.

So _____ we go, first an axis for health, life expectancy from / of 25 years to 75 years. And down here an axis for wealth, income per person 400, 4,000, and $40,000. So down here is poor and sick, and up _____ is rich and healthy.

_____ I'm going to show you the world 200 years ago / before, in 1810.

____ come all the countries Europe brown, Asia red, Middle East green, Africa South of the Sahara blue, and the Americas yellow. ____ the size of the country bubble means / shows the size of the population.

And in 1810 it was pretty crowded down there, wasn't / was  it? All countries were sick and poor, life expectancy was below 40 in all countries. ____ only the UK and the Netherlands were slightly better off, _____ not much / very.

____ ____, I start the world.

The Industrial Revolution makes countries in Europe and elsewhere / others  move away from the rest. _____ the colonized countries in Asia and Africa, they are stuck down there.

_____ eventually / later the Western countries get healthier and healthier.

____ ____ we slow down, to show the impact of the First World War, and the Spanish flu epidemic, what / that’s a catastrophe.

___  ____ I speed up through the 1920s and the 1930s, and in spite of / because of the Great Depression, western countries forge on towards greater wealth and health. Japan and some others try to follow, ____ most countries stay / keep down _____.

____, after the tragedies of the Second World War, we stop a bit to look at the world in 1948.

1948 was a great year, the war was over, Sweden topped the medal table at the Winter Olympics, and I was born. ____ the differences between / within the countries of the world were wider than ever. United States was in the front, Japan was catching up, Brazil was way backward / behind, Iran was getting a little richer from oil, but still / also had short lives. And the Asian giants, China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, they were still poor and sick down _____.

_____ look what is about to happen, here / there we go again.

In my lifetime former colonies gained independence and then finally they started to get healthier and healthier and healthier. ____ in the 1970s then countries in Asia and Latin America started to catch up with the Western countries. They became the developing / emerging economies, some in Africa follows, some Africans were stuck in civil war, and others hit by HIV.

____ ____, we can see the world today in the most up-to-date statistics.

Most people today live in the middle, ____ there's a huge difference at the same time between the best-off countries and the worst-off countries. ____ there are huge inequalities within / between countries. These bubbles show country averages, ____ I can split them. Take / For example China, I can split it into provinces, there goes Shanghai. It has the same wealth and health as Italy today. And there is the poor inland province Guizhou, it is like Pakistan, ____ if I split it further / more, the rural parts are like Ghana in Africa.

____ yet despite / due to the enormous disparities today, we have seen 200 years of remarkable progress, that huge historical gap between the west and the rest is ____ closed / closing. We have become an entirely new converged / converging world, ____ I see a clear / small trend into the future with aid, trade, green technology, and peace. It's fully possible / probable that everyone can make it to the healthy wealthy corner.

Well what you've just seen in the last few minutes is a story of 200 countries showing / shown over 200 years and beyond / after. It involved plotting 120,000 numbers, pretty great / neat uh?