Human Statistics

This dataset contains 12 layers, each showing a set of global statistics as measured in 2000. The statistics represented include population, population density, population growth rate, infant mortality rate, life expectancy, energy use, literacy rate, access to safe water, access to contraception, and newspapers, tourists, cars, televisions, and phones per 1000 people. All data were taken from the Nelson Institute Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, which created an online database of maps called the Atlas of the Biosphere. The Atlas's purpose is to provide an easily accessible collection of maps from several different sources. This particular set of data was taken from a census performed by Newsweek magazine in 2000. A brief description of each map, in the order they appear in the dataset, follows:

1. Cars per 1000 people: The average number of adults of legal driving age who own a car per thousand people per country.
2. Contraception access: The percentage of people per country who have easy and affordable access to contraception. The definition of contraception used in the census was not given.
3. Population growth rate: Percentage growth per year of population per country.
4. Infant mortality rate: Presumably the average number of infant deaths per 1000 infants born, per country. The units of these data were not specified.
5. Life Expectancy: Average life expectancy in years per country.
6. Literacy rate: Percentage of adult population able to read per country.
7. Newspapers per 1000 people: The number of individual copies of newspapers available per 1000 people, per country.
8. Phones per 1000 people: The number of telephones per 1000 people per country. Telephone type - landline or mobile - was not specified.
9. Population: Number of per country.
10. Population Density: Average number of people per square kilometer per country.
11. Safe water access: Percentage of a country's population with consistent access to safe, reliable drinking water.
12. Televisions per 1000 people: The average number of televisions per 1000 people per country.

Each layer can be turned on or off through the list of layers under the Layers tab on the SOS Remote iPad app.

This dataset was created using Quantum GIS (or QGIS, or Quantum Geographic Information System), which is a "free, open source geographic information system." A tutorial is available that will walk you through the basics of using QGIS to create SOS-formatted maps, including this one. In addition to this dataset, the tutorial also walks through the creation of the Marine Life Tracking dataset and the Earthquakes and Nuclear Power Plants dataset.