Beef production in Brazil has been the largest driver of global deforestation in recent decades
Most beef production in Brazil is to meet domestic rather than international demand.
Our World in Data
Research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems
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The rise of electoral democracy
How elections spread, voting rights expanded, and political competition developed around the world over the last two centuries.
Which countries have already passed peak population, and when will the rest do so?
Falling fertility rates have created a unique scenario in human history: many countries are experiencing structural population decline.
138 million children are in child labor. What does this actually mean?
According to a UN report published last year, there are 138 million children in child labor. In this article, we look at what this estimate exactly captures.
How primary energy is measured has changed across our charts
The Energy Institute no longer uses the substitution method to estimate primary energy. Here’s why that matters for our charts on energy.
What has driven deforestation in the 21st century?
Agriculture has been the main driver of deforestation, but this has been concentrated in only a few commodities: mostly beef, palm oil, soy, and forestry products.
We published a new topic page on economic inequality
Learn how inequality is measured, who produces key databases, and what the data tells us.
How much energy do data centers and artificial intelligence use?
Data centers consume around 1.5% of global electricity, but demand is very geographically concentrated.
We have a new Urbanization topic page
Explore how populations are distributed across settlement types, which cities are growing fastest, what living conditions in urban areas look like, and much more.
How does food get traded around the world?
Our interactive tool helps you see where food is exported from and where it goes.